6 Simple Ways To Make Your Social Media Brand Better Right Now

Here are 6 simple ways that anyone can improve their social media presence right now.

1. Get to know your target - Identify common characteristics among your current customer base. Who are you marketing to? Where are customers finding your competition? What do you want customers to do/think when they see your brand? A bit of thought devoted to these questions can help you hone in on how, where and when to most effectively reach your target. If it's been a while since you've taken a good look at your customers, make sure you are still making the best choices for your brand.

2. Update your profiles - Keeping your profiles fresh and accurate shows that you are thoughtful and engaged in your own brand. Keep your profile picture clear and professional with a recent headshot or your brand logo. Use the cover photo area as a more creative space that showcases something about you and/or your brand. The cover area should be the most fluid area in your profiles. Periodically refreshing your page keeps your information accurate and your look current. Don't be afraid to make small changes a few times a year. How long has it been since you updated your profiles?

3. Post to your pages regularly and consistently - Having a profile and never posting anything to it looks almost as bad as not having a profile at all. You may wonder if the time it takes to post to your profiles regularly is worth the effort. You may be too busy to put a ton of time into finding and posting content to your pages. With very little effort you can post regularly and consistently using a few simple hacks. With an online or telephone app scheduling tool like Hootsuite, you can create and schedule regular posts into the future on up to three profiles. Posting as few as 2 or 3 times a week is better than nothing. On the other hand, posting in excess of 2 times a day is overkill. Don't desensitize your followers to your brand by flooding them with too much information, too often.

4. Remember the 80/20 rule when it comes to content - Try to think of social media like a giant networking party. You would never stand in a corner by yourself and endlessly talk about how great you are at a dinner party with your peers or potential customers. If you didn’t find common ground and interact normally, you would soon find yourself excluded from the conversations going on around you. So why would you exclusively talk about yourself or your brand in the conversation that is social media? Before you balk at the thought of coming up with relevant content to post on a regular basis that isn’t advertising start thinking outside of the box. If you’ve followed my first piece of advice, you know what you have in common with your customer. When you find good relevant content that might be of interest to them, schedule it to post. I once grew a social media profile from 0 to 25000 followers in 2 years by posting almost exclusively inspirational quotes I found on Goodreads. Just Google “Quotes about _________ Goodreads” or try a site like Quote Garden. Schedule one to post 3 or 4 times a week. And then, post about yourself 1 or 2 times a week. Keep your post mix general interest content heavy but stay away from hot topics like politics and religion on your business profiles.

 5. Invite your customers, friends, and family to support your brand by interacting with your content and profiles periodically - Ask for reviews. Increase your brand reach by directly asking for help from the people who already want to help you, your friends and family. It’s a small thing to ask for a comment, share or “like” on something you post to your business social media once in a while. If you don’t ask people might not even think to do it. You will be surprised how much something as simple as this will increase your reach and build it organically over time.

6. Respond to inquiries on your profiles quickly - Set up an auto-response (if the profile supports it) so that the algorithms detect an immediate response on your part. If you can’t set up an auto-response, set up auto-alerts that let you know when a customer has contacted you through social media. Responding is a lost art these days. Stand out by staying on top of any correspondence you receive and responding in a timely manner. Ghosting a potential customer is a sure way to make a bad impression. Lastly, make sure your profiles are not set to display the average response time if you have not set up the auto-response feature.