5 Important Tips for Optimizing Your Social Media
Written by Courtney Raguso, Social Media Content Creator
The main goal of your social media is to increase brand awareness. The internet is your playground and the opportunities available online are endless. Some of the biggest benefits you can get from optimizing your social media is brand exposure, relationship building, and thought leadership. If your content is not optimized, you could be throwing money away as well as potential followers. Having a lot of followers is great for your brand’s social, but the real meat on the bone is your content. Having good content that’s optimized for your audience will work a lot better than just focusing on gaining followers. It’s a common misconception to believe that who your followers are doesn’t matter as long as you have them following you. Social proof is a great way to get people interested, but it can only go so far. If you want them actually purchasing your product, you will need to have meaningful followers. To have meaningful followers, you have to optimize your content for the specific audience you need to reach and aim to build a connection with that user. When you optimize your social media and it’s content, you’re making your brand more reachable to the right people. You have to identify your audience, compile your data and apply it to your social media plan. That way, you can see what works and what doesn’t with your target audience, sooner. Time is money, but if you’re going to invest in social media, you’ll have to skip the short cuts. You can’t cheat your way to the top, and having a social media following that brings in a positive return requires effort. Not every follower equates to a sale, but if you’re not optimizing your social media, then you’re definitely leaving money on the table. Below we listed 5 tips that are essential for a business to follow in order for their social media performance to give them a better quality following. 
Create High-Quality Visuals
Having content that is of poor quality cheapens your brand image. Low-quality imagery and poorly executed video can hurt your brand and make it appear unprofessional and untrustworthy. Visual content marketing has become a very important strategy because of its gained popularity over recent years. If you’re using imagery, make sure your visuals stay consistent with your branding, colors, language, and design. Using video allows you to build more trust and have the chance to present content in a more interactive way. So keep in mind that your videos will need to provide your audience with something valuable because video content tends to get more engagement over other types of content.
Use Hashtags
Do you want to find the right people? Do you want to be discovered? Then use the proper hashtags and keywords in your posts. Hashtags make it easy to find trending topics and categorize social media posts. They also help give your posts more reach and make it easier for your content to be found by people who aren’t following you. When it comes to hashtags, use trending hashtags in your niche. You can also create your own hashtags to use to promote your brand and build a community around it. Just be careful with what you decide to settle on. Also, you’ll want to include your location so it’s easy for people to find your business and see if it’s local.
Include Strong Captions with Calls-to-Action in Your Posts
You have the platform. It’s your stage. So this is your chance to tell your story to the world, and you have full control of how you do it. You won’t succeed at social media if your content isn’t strong, so keep your content consistent and engaging. If you want them to know something or do a certain action, social media is the place to do it. You should always include captions in your posts explaining the visual content and what you want them to do, of course in a clever-sounding way. A call-to-action that works will direct the audience what to do next. It can be as simple as telling them to visit a link or enter a giveaway. It can even be a question, asking them to answer and share their thoughts in the comments below.
Have Multiple Social Accounts
Having one social media account is NEVER enough. If you don’t want to limit your brand from being discovered, you’ll want to have at least 3 accounts. This way, you’ll be able to gather a lot more data on your audience to use for marketing. You’ll also be able to compare different accounts and their performance to see which ones are best to use for your brand. Focus on the networks that bring the most value and make sure that your profiles are optimized. Have every field completed in its profile, include all relevant links, and keep branding consistent across all platforms. Oh and just because your competition might not be on a certain account doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be.
Be Active & Engage with Followers
The more interaction your posts get, the more visibility they will receive in your followers’ newsfeeds. As you engage with users, you will find out which ones are relevant and which ones aren’t. Also, the more you engage with users, the more connections you make. By ignoring comments and DMs you are basically showing the person that your brand doesn’t care to listen and that will destroy your brand image. Having an active social account provides more social proof to potential customers and helps build trust. Also, posting times are irrelevant if you’re not throwing out enough content. So try posting multiple times per day, just make sure they’re relevant, contain value, and are sharable.
These tips will provide you a helpful base to optimizing your social media, but it shouldn’t stop there. There are so many different strategies and habits you can apply that are all a part of what makes up good social media marketing. Reaching relevant users with high-intent through optimization is a crucial part of gaining a following that will stick around, be responsive, and make a purchase. Your social media isn’t a popularity contest, it’s a communication outlet and should be used to build brand awareness and loyalty. Every brand is unique and so is their audience. Social media offers so many tools you can use to build your online presence and network. There are a lot of factors that go into making sure your content is optimized for the right audience, and social media offers many opportunities. It’s just a matter of how you structure your posts to give them the best chance of getting clicks and conversions. Maintaining and optimizing multiple accounts can be very difficult and time-consuming. If you put in less than 100% of your effort, you will be leaving revenue on the table.
At MSM DesignZ, we make every investment dollar count. With over 20 years in the business, we have seen social media evolve from its infancy. We know the ins and outs of optimizing social media content, and we leave no stone unturned. There are no short-cuts for success, so that’s why we’re here to make it easier for you! We will always continue to place our clients’ needs at the heart of our operations. From web development to social media management, we’ll work directly with you to build a personalized strategy to not only retain but also gain business. We are assisting in all areas for our clients. Visit our contact page at https://www.msmdesignz.com/contact/, and we’ll work with you to devise a custom plan that will keep your brand alive and well. We look forward to working with you!
Sources:
https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-optimization/