Public. Relations. You may have reacted to these two words in one of two ways: either with elation or with fear, given the scope of these platforms. You’re probably here because you either completely adore social media or you’re paralyzed with fear at the very idea.
No matter how you feel about it, social media is only growing in importance in today’s fast-paced, technologically-driven, and increasingly insular work environment. If you work from home like many people around the world do, taking on the responsibility of monitoring your social media accounts may be both an exciting enterprise and a daunting procedure. I’m here to reassure you that everything is going to be fine, and to provide some helpful advice.
The good news is that you don’t have to be famous or well-known in order to attract a large audience to your social media posts. Keeping in touch with your online community is more important than ever, and there are lots of little-known tricks that can help you do just that on your social media platforms and grow your business’ fan base. Due to the problem caused by the coronavirus COVID-19, many sites have added tools to help small companies contact more people online.
However, there are many additional aspects that can help you reach new audiences without requiring you to become an algorithm expert or spend many hours on the task.
6 Tips for leveraging social media to expand your business’s reach
Start keeping regular hours
There’s an ancient cliché that goes something like, “Content is King.” If this is so, then scheduling apps are the court jesters that make life in the kingdom a little bit more enjoyable and less taxing. If you’re anything like me, you’d rather not be constantly checking your phone or manually updating content—hour after hour, at lunch, at 3 in the morning.
Tools for managing social media accounts are the optimal solution. Scheduled posts can be made in advance using a number of different apps, which can both free up your time and eliminate the need for time-consuming manual updates. There is probably an app or tool that will be the right fit for your management style, and most of them feature additional capabilities (like analytics) that will allow you to keep tabs on your social media from a centralized location.
A hashtag is not to be taken lightly
Whether you love them or hate them, hashtags are a powerful tool for expanding your online presence. Be careful not to get lost in a sea of possibilities by adding the maximum possible to every post. Using widely-used hashtags like “#love” or “#summer” will likely group your post in with others about similar topics, but specialist hashtags can help you reach people who are already interested in your field.
Promote your blog posts on social media to increase site visitors
Writing blog posts and articles for your company’s website is a great method to attract new customers and retain existing ones. The time to start one is now if you haven’t already. Either you’ve just established one on your own or you’ve been operating one for a while and I have some good news: you can expand beyond just posting on your own site by taking use of some of the other options I’ll go over below.
Sharing this article on your various social media platforms is a great way to get more people to visit your website. Schedule a few tweets promoting your blog and linking to it if at all possible. This is a win-win because it facilitates user discovery and increases blog traffic.
Join forces with influential micro-bloggers
Nowadays, influencer marketing is all the rage. It’s a form of online promotion when influential figures in a given field position ads and promote products for a fee. (influencers).
Sounds scary, but you don’t need an influencer on the level of Kylie Jenner ($1.2M per post) to sell your goods. Focus on the micro-influencer and try to think like them. Depending on the issue or market they serve, their social media followings can range from 2,000 to 50,000 people.
Learn when the best times are to publish
We’ve all struggled with the dilemma of whether or not to press “publish” at 2 a.m. on our masterpiece of social media content. It’s advisable to wait till you know when your target audience is online rather than guessing when they’ll be most engaged. Be wary about strictly adhering to the suggested times when most users are scrolling through, as these are only generalizations and not all audiences have the same tendencies.
Making educated assumptions about time slots that potentially generate traffic, such as the morning and afternoon commute or lunch break, is the first step in figuring out when to post for maximum impact with your target audience. Track your traffic to see when you get the most views and adjust your strategy accordingly.
Pay more attention to participation and less to superficial measures
The notion of “vanity metrics” includes the amount of social media “likes” and “followers.” It’s easy to fall for the illusion that these are what really matter when determining the success of your content, but in truth, engagement should be your top priority. You can tell that people are interested in your business and its products or services if they leave comments and interact with your posts, rather than just clicking the “like” button.