Social Media: Mastering the art of connecting digitally

By Aathmika Mahasenan

Social media has become an integral part of our daily lives. These platforms have revolutionized the way we connect, share, and communicate with others. It's essential to recognize that the heart of social media lies in the connections it facilitates.

Businesses value social media platforms as a hub to connect with their customers through organic growth and authenticity of their content. Common benefits are, reaching a larger audience, and target audience, increasing brand awareness, building customer relationships and generating leads. But it is just the basic….

What businesses are missing out on the real way of connecting with their customers is using the right methods of using visual content on social media, whether it is video, images, captions, hashtags, tweet posts, the right music, title and questions.

Not to mention, AI and Generative Chatbots can help you give content ideas and break down the content which post can posted to which platform. These technologies have been a breakthrough for many content creators and businesses out there, so far many content tools are connecting with AI as well.

For example, Canva, Adobe, Veed and other social media tools are using social media to leverage their customer base.

But when you are posting, there is also the issue of the active times;?active times may work or may not work, and consistent content can bore people which will eventually show a drop in reach, it is always best to give the platform’s algorithm to reach out for your target audience with the posts you have.

There should be a gap in your posting (It is always best to keep the platforms busy on the ‘Stories’ section.)

It is better to have a mix of everything, photos, videos, artworks, quotes or comments from customers or harmless clickbait posts. These things will most likely grab people to show that we are an interesting company.

What is really important is to understand your social SEOs. Social SEO is the practice of adding text-based features like captions, alt-text, and closed captions to your posts to help people browsing social platforms easily find your content.

Search engines like Google or Bing allow you to search for information and then serve up a list of web results that point you to the content you’re looking for. (Or the content algorithms think you would want to see based on the search phrase you used, your location, previous searches, etc.)

One part of improving your SEOs in social media is keywords which are important in your captions, few paragraphs will show how boring they are.

It's best to promote a product or service with a connection to a customer’s story or connection to your company, language and culture/ traditions also play a crucial role.

For example for a company that sells flowers, “Since Halloween is over, there is always a debate whether to start decorating the house with Christmas decoration in the month of November….”

Then insert an image of beautiful flowers like Amaryllis etc… (Traditional christmas flower)

You will create an audience who will agree or disagree to what you wrote, which will boost engagement. Further, once you post it, you can start a comment in sections leaving a small question or etc.

There are also hashtags, selecting the right hashtags will reach more people. I realized hashtags are like maps.

For example, if your image is a picture of a Christmas cake with the recipe in the caption, your first hashtags should be #baking, then #recipies, then #christmasbaking, #christmasrecipies and #christmascake…and connect these hashtags with other food-related hashtags below.

Your post will most likely reach out to non-followers as well. It is good to have 20 hashtags on average.

Instagram’s algorithm changes now and then, just like all the platforms their main rival is Tiktok. When you are posting video on Tiktok, Tiktok recognizes the video as entertainment and automatically reach more people.

That is why your video gets more views based on the trending hashtags and viral trends or songs or videos it shares. It appears on the FYP as a good content.

So becoming popular on Instagram is not easy, the platform has a slow processing time for the page to reach people and produce organic growth (unless you are lucky). That is why Facebook and Instagram are making their users use Meta’s Ads Manager to pay to promote their content.

If it is a video, it doesn’t matter if you are in it or not, things like big fancy text, subtitles and using the right music will reach to that specific community.

If it is a lifestyle video and the video shows your success, use pop music that contributes to what you do and connect it with the lyrics, or if it is a short tutorial video, chill music is ideal (copyright is important). Community can be people who into fashion, health or who need tips or hacks.

If it is a room décor, unboxing or small business, but you want to add pop music with artists singing, melancholia, soft rock chill music is optional.

It's also best not to post the same image or video to all platforms, post an image on one and post a video on the other, see which platform and content style performs best.

If you are using both content styles, a handy tip for sharing your content on Instagram and Facebook: If you put up a cool picture on Instagram, try posting an interesting video on Facebook instead.

To keep things fresh, you can share the same picture on Facebook and the same video on Instagram. Just make sure there's a little time gap between these two posts.

TikTok supports pop music, as I stated above, copyright is important if you own or work in a big business or you could try copyright-free music like Epidemic. They support music on all platforms, from YouTube to TikTok. Sped-up songs or ‘nightcore’ have been popular since the 2010s, as Tiktok blew up Sped-up songs on TikTok have become the norm.

According to Hypebot, -

“Sped-up songs on TikTok are the most popular categories on the platform. Their popularity reflects the way TikTok and digital natives consume media, and ultimately the fast-paced nature of modern societies.

Much has been said about decreasing attention spans and TikTok. It is therefore safe to say that the development and popularity of sped-up songs was a no-brainer, given that speed and content quantity are TikTok’s top priorities. By removing pauses, intricate instrumental breaks, and slow moments within the song, sped-up songs invite the listener to focus on the vibe, rather than on the song’s meaning, and the visual at hand……Musicians and record labels are leveraging the popularity of sped-up songs?"

Thumbnails and captivating titles play a key role in capturing the audience's attention on social media and video platforms. When selecting a thumbnail, it's often more effective to create a no-title image that piques curiosity and aligns with the video's content rather than relying on an automated choice from your video.

X or Threads, it is your choice, but Threads is becoming ideal, people are just getting used to the platform. X is almost like a political debate platform. But if you are an entertainment artist or animation student, X is ok, it's best to post, memes, and gifs, but make sure it is related to the audience’s needs.

Finally, engage with your audience from time to time, you follow their social media small business page and connect with them on messages showing your positive feedback and how the business’s product can benefit their business. Learn about their problems, and give out tips to customers in the comments.

If you have a fashion brand or jewellery brand, comment on your customer’s fashion style or if you own a content creator and have a bakery shop, leave a positive comment on another content creator’s baking page.

This will boost positivity and engagement reaching out to more people.

These social platforms constantly change from the algorithms, the video and image dimensions and boosting your posts.

These tips probably are the basics, there is a lot out there, that other big–mid content creators or businesses are using to become viral.

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