A social media presence for companies. It once used to be optional, but now it has become a must for businesses.
When someone asks me why social media is important, I like to tell them to think of it as their business card— a medium to present your brand, staying top of mind, and a credibility statement.
Sold on it? The following are eight tips to create a social media presence for companies.
Competitor benchmarking— a little snooping around never hurts!
This type of snooping around has a name: competitor benchmarking. What are your competitors doing? What’s working for them? What isn’t? I usually recommend researching at least three successful competitors in your industry.
Take note on what type of content they’re creating, post frequency, what their highest performing posts are, target audience, voice, message, and even hashtags! Benchmarking will save you time and put you in advantage by learning what’s effective in your industry.
What does your target audience look like?
Your audience and your competitors’ are probably closely similar, but they might be slightly different. Once you identify your target audience, adjust your strategy based on that.
Identify your audience demographics, consider what channels it would make more sense for your brand to be present on, content type, and voice. For example, if your audience is Millennials, Instagram would be the channel to spend most of your energy on. Millennials are more likely to prefer photos and videos over articles, and a younger voice would be most appropriate. It’s all a matter of matching your audience to your brand identity.
Keep your brand in mind.
Aside from what’s working for your competitors, and audience, it’s important to focus on your brand identity. As you’re putting together a social media strategy, ask yourself: does it fit my brand? Is the content easily recognizable as part of my brand? It all ties back to the business card example; it’s all about presenting your brand and making a good impression.
Because brand presence is essential, it’s important to consider being on all social media channels, as long as it aligns with your brand identity, goal, and target audience. To make things easier: if someone hears about your company through word of mouth, on what channels are they most likely to look your company up?
Stay ahead and organized: create a social media calendar.
Planning and organizing content on a monthly basis will make your life easier. Some companies even plan content three months in advance to stay ahead. With the creation of a content calendar, you’ll never miss holidays or important dates for your company, it’ll help you save time, and it’ll give you an idea of what type of content you need to create. It’s also easier to visualize what a month’s worth of content will look like if you have it planned out in advance.
Let’s talk content.
You’ve learned the importance of a social media presence and how to get started, so what’s next? Think of your goal. You might want to be on social media to increase brand awareness, lead generation, customer support, etc. For example, if the goal is lead generation for an online clothing boutique, it would be wise to include the website’s link on the bio and include a call to action on posts to drive traffic to the website. The content should also be created around communicating your goal.
With content comes hashtags— and it’s all about the hashtags!
The power of hashtags is stronger than you think. They’re so important, they deserve their own paragraph! Hashtags assort content by topics or categories and make content easier to find.
The easiest and most effective way to find hashtags related to your company is by researching your competitors. Once you find hashtags that are relatable to your business, look them up on the channel you’ll be using in order to find hashtag size and relevancy.
The more specific a hashtag is, the more targeted your audience will be, but it’s also beneficial to include a variety of hashtag sizes. Play around with your combination of hashtags until you find a group of hashtags that bring you good results. I recommend changing a few hashtags around based on the type of content you’re creating.
To ensure hashtags are relevant to your company, scroll on the social channel until you can get an idea of what type of accounts your content is going to be categorized with. This is also a safe way to make sure the hashtag isn’t associated with inappropriate content.
The meaning of a hashtag might also vary by network. A hashtag that might be popular on one channel might not exist on the other, or have a completely different meaning.
Lastly, don’t make up your own hashtags— chances are, you might be the only one using them and they’ll be extremely difficult to discover.
Let the numbers speak.
Listen to the numbers! What’s working? What isn’t? If it’s working, replicate it. If it’s not, modify it or try a new strategy. If you have a post that was considerably successful, get the most out of it by boosting it. Take advantage of paid ads to enhance the content that’s already bringing you great results.
Stay up-to-date!
Social media is constantly evolving. Algorithms change, features come and go, and new trends often roll in. This might sound insignificant, but staying informed and up to date is key in staying relevant, appealing, and continue growing.
Best of luck, and stay social!
About the author
Grecia Olachea is a Digital Marketing Manager at Markitors, a SEO company. In her free time, Grecia enjoys long walks at Target, trying new brunch spots, and traveling.
