My 7 Be's of Social Media Content
I could talk all day about hints and tips and tricks and hacks to shine online. But most of us haven’t got all day to spend on our social, so I’ve narrowed down my ‘7 Be’s’ to help you prioritise. These will help you shine online and turn those posts into pounds.
Be Yourself
1. Everyone else is taken and this way you will attract like-minded followers and potential customers. Don’t over share on the personal stuff but telling your story or giving a few fun facts about yourself makes you more relatable. Make sure you show your face from time to time, it really helps raise your profile and grow your brand – be visible.
Be Consistent
This is so important it’s actually 2 Be’s
2. Choose a colour palette, fonts, tone of voice (if you are being your authentic self that last one should come very easily.) Have the same profile image across all digital platforms, being consistent makes you distinctive. I use a sunflower across most of my posts because it’s significant to me and my business – I’ll help you stand tall and shine above the rest – followers now associate me with sunflowers and regularly tag me in sunflower related posts. Make sure it’s something you like as you should really stick with it and avoid
changing your branding too often.
3. Make quality posts consistently! Be active! Don’t post 10 times one day and then don’t bother again for a month and because you are a bit quiet and have some spare time knock out another 10 posts and ignore it for the rest of the month. There’s plenty of planning tools out there to help you plan, we’ll come to that later. I have a friend who is an influencer with close to 50,000 followers – she has posted good, consistent and quality content for over 4 years, hardly missing a day – there’s no such thing as a quick win.
Be Nice
4. Not just in the sense of keeping negativity to a minimum. Don’t put together great posts and then sit back and wait for people to start commenting – it is Social Media after all, not self media. Identify 10 accounts each day and comment on their Instagram posts, 5 on Facebook and 5 on LinkedIn, don’t get me started on Twitter, it works for very specific niches but it’s the least useful of the big 4 in my experience. These could be accounts that do something similar to you, you could perhaps get a chance to collaborate or learn something new, a local business, something that interests you … I interact a lot with my favourite coffee shop, what do I get out of it – nothing, although they do often share my posts but they do have the best coffee and wi-fi in my local area so its nice to deservedly big them up and engage.
Be a Storyteller
5. Human beings are predisposed to enjoy stories. Think of Social Media as a campfire, people sitting round and telling their stories – the most interesting ones get passed on and shared or even better people want to come and sit at your campfire and listen, your fire burns brighter. Make your stories worth hearing, your content worth sharing and authentic, don’t copy others. While we are on Stories – I love Instagram and Facebook Stories – use your highlights to showcase yourself at the top of that all important feed. Remember – in very simple terms that your grid/feed is to grow your following and your Stories are to keep your existing followers interested. That’s in very basic terms but it helps you decided where to broadcast which content.
Be Insightful
6. Use your insights, research your hashtags, then do it some more. I have 4 honed sets of hashtags I keep copy and pasted in my phone on every device I own, I research and edit them weekly. Your insights will tell you when your audience is looking and who they are – remember that, you are being yourself, but you are writing to attract your audience and ideal client. Don’t guess which hashtags work, don’t guess which posts work and which ones don’t there’s so much information available to you, use it! I now rarely post at weekends on Instagram as I get very little engagement – that saves me time and energy and gives me precious weekend time without engaging with followers.
Be Organised
