Editor’s Note: Here at Dispatches, we are always looking for ways to help our readers do things. For some of our readers, that means helping navigate the working world, for others, it means assisting in the ever challenging question, “what’s for dinner?” For still others, it means figuring out how to balance family life with everything else. In an effort to aid in all of these endeavors, we have collaborated on this article written specifically for our readers.
Whether you are doing it for your stay-at-home business or just for personal branding, you should make sure you are approaching your social media in the right way. What the “right way” actually means in practice is another matter. The right way for you will be different from the right way for someone else. You could spend a great deal of time learning and applying best practices, but ultimately it comes down to making it work for your specific goals. However, there are a number of steps you can take as you’re perfecting and learning to get a better handle on your social media accounts.
Buy Likes
One of the biggest factors on practically any of the social media platforms is likes and interactions. As long as you are getting likes, you will find that you are also gaining followers and interest, and that is ultimately what you should be going for here. However, it can be hard to get many likes early on especially if you don’t yet have many followers. There are a number of things you can do, and you might be tempted to simply buy likes. When you buy Instagram likes, for instance, you may find that other people suddenly like you more. This is an inflated number and likely isn’t going to help you reach your goals, especially if the accounts are quickly closed or obviously robots. Buying likes is great for an ego boost and terrible business practice.
Consider Using Social Media Management
A good social media management tool will save you time and give you better insight into how your posts perform. The Social Report lets you schedule posts, actively listen, gives you sophisticated analytics, custom reporting and more. With Social Report you can track the performance of everything from your Facebook pages and Twitter profiles, to business reviews, website site performance and blogs. Easily schedule and post on as many social networks as you wish. Social Report is by far the easiest and the most feature rich way to publish on social media. Plus, you can automate specific tasks to save time.Here’s a sneak peek at what the platform looks like for cross-channel engagement:
Additionally, you can see a deeper analysis of platform-specific metrics using Social Report.
One more feature worth highlighting is the Growth metrics:
Use Many Platforms
It’s a good idea not to limit yourself to only one platform, as that is essentially the same as limiting yourself to only one room of people in the real world. Instead, you should identify where you want to spend your time and if you are trying to achieve business goals, where your ideal customers spend time and create profiles on those sites. Don’t assume that twitter and facebook will always be the belle of the ball in the social media world. Keep an eye on up and coming social channels and at the minimum consider reserving your name or brand name on those as early as possible.
Provide Varied Content
Pay attention to what you are posting. Don’t always be selling or always be negative. Try to have a reflection of who you are and what your brand stands for if that is applicable to you. Try not to duplicate content on all platforms and pay attention to the social norms for each space. DO your research and pay attention to the subtle differences for each channel. Be authentic and engaging and work to grow your audience organically.
Over time you will develop a practice and voice that achieves your goals. You should absolutely be open to changing tactics and even channels to make sure you reach the audience you want to reach when you want to reach them.