With the number of social media platforms out there, starting an online presence for your brand can be daunting. Creating the right message that appeals to a large online audience means taking the time to develop carefully crafted posts. It is important to constantly focus on creating content that is engaging and relatable. Social media also provides the opportunity to show personality, highlight your vision/mission and programs, and bring your fans behind the scenes on a daily basis.
Think of social media as a way to educate, empower, inspire, and connect with your target audience. Expand their minds, bring value and enlightenment into their daily feeds.
Use your platforms as an archive of your work, your vision, and your message. Look at it as a way for present and future audiences to gain access to valuable insight, information, history, resources, and advice from you that is timeless.
The goal of social media is to build a loyal community. Social media lies in the Likes, Shares, and comments you receive on your updates, therefore every update on social media cannot be a link, or something promoting your work, events, classes, press quotes, or the company itself. The focus has to shift to a healthy balance of providing value to your target audience through your updates, engaging them in conversation, and offering motivation, inspiration, tips, and advice. Share your mission/vision/core values, and lastly, your company’s events and updates.
Diversify Your Updates and Mix Up The Media. Post photos, videos, and links throughout the day and evening. Apply the 80/20 Principle across all social media platforms: 80% Engagement/20% Promotional Updates (including donation solicitation/ticket sales for shows). And remember to RESPOND and like all comments and messages within 48 hours.
Make sure that you connect social media to your website to with SM icons, preferably at top of page (or a floating bar on blog posts). You can also add like buttons.
TAG, TAG, TAG – tagging organizations and individuals helps increase the number of viewers as it will show up on their timelines and to their friends and audiences. Make sure your profiles are the same on all platforms (i.e. @inthelightspr) so that it is easier for your fans to find and tag you across platforms AND to make it easier on marketing materials (i.e. follow us @inthelightspr and have icons for all platforms that you have a profile).
You are what you share. Be engaging, educational, informative and kind. Support those in your field and develop a clear network of alliances. Make your brand accessible for all audiences by offering a wide scope of content across all of your platforms. Your social media will not be a chore if you believe what you are sharing. It is about opening your doors and letting your audiences and fans see you for all that you are.
Set up and monitor metrics. You may want to use a bit.ly or other service to shorten your links so that you can measure click-through rates as none of the platforms provide this.