My Top 5 Tips for Social Media
My favorite tips for how to show up confidently and authentically on social media in order to attract committed and engaged followers.
A lot of people think organic social media is dead. While I believe parts of the argument are true, I mainly think people are saying this to have a click-bait title. So, what parts are true and what parts aren’t?
Organic Social Media Is Not Dead!
It’s true that reaching a large audience nowadays using only organic social media is tough, especially if you’re starting from nothing. It’s not impossible, but it’s definitely much harder than say, 5 or 10 years ago.
But what is true about organic social media, is that it can complement your paid ads (if you’re running them), give you legitimacy if a customer ever decides to look you up, connect with your clients/audience/followers, and allow you to deliver customer service.
So, here are my top 5 tips for showing up organically, confidently, and authentically on social media.
Social Media Tip #1: Find Your Voice.
Identifying how you’re going to be talking to your audience (and ultimately attracting your ideal customer) is key. Are you going to be bubbly, friendly, and approachable? Or are you going to be witty, funny, and smart?
Take for example Wendy’s. They’re classically known as being a funny, troll account that still provides relevant content to their brand.
As you can see, I like to show up as your friendly, approachable, and conscientious photographer and social media consultant.
You want to keep on brand and stick with it. I suggest identifying 3 descriptive words that you’d like your voice to be. Once you find your voice, keep to it, and show up authentically to your audience.
Social Media Tip #2: Keep Up On Your Competition.
Social listening is a great skill to implement in your social media strategy. It’s essentially audience and brand research that allows you to have a pulse on the goings-on of your field. You’re listening to what people are saying, liking, or doing when it comes to your business.
A part of that is keeping up on your competition. See what they’re doing well, what they’re not doing well, and what you do or don’t like about their social media strategy. You can identify gaps of their strategies and fill those in, thus, making yourself more relevant.
You can also see what hashtags they’re using to give you inspiration. Let’s talk about that in the next tip.
Social Media Tip #3: How To (Effectively) Use Hashtags.
Hashtags may seem like a scary and daunting thing. Besides from the fact that everyone uses them, do they actually matter?
The short answer is yes. People use hashtags to discover other and new content. Thus influencing their discover feed if they’re on Instagram. So, how do you effectively use them?
Always put yourself in your customers shoes. What are they looking up, and how can you use that knowledge to help them find you? This is where the competitor analysis and can be useful.
Below you can see how I use hashtags like #sanfranciscophotographer and #personalbrandingphotographer to make myself discoverable by my potential client.
Social Media Tip #4: Use A Rule Of Thumb When Posting.
We all know the car salesman trope. He’s gross, only cares about money, and over sells you on everything. You don’t want to be him.
But maybe you accidentally do by selling your services too much. Yeah, that can happen. Now how you prevent that from happening is having a rule of thumb when posting (and this is also why I always advocate for planning out your content ahead of time).
You can use the rule of thirds (for example, 1/3 of your content is promotional, 1/3 of your content is educational, 1/3 of your content is funny), the 80/20 rule, or the 70/30 rule. There are obviously other variations that may work best for you, but create a rule and stick to it.
Social Media Tip #5: Likes Are A Vanity Metric.
This last tip is less of a tip and more of a reminder. Likes are a vanity metric. Meaning, yeah they’re great but they don’t directly influence your bottom line. Just because one post gets 5x more likes, doesn’t mean you make 5x the money.
Use it rather as an idea on what hashtags are working, and what content is resonating with your followers (and non-followers).
I hope these tips have helped you think about ways you can better show up on social media, and better plan out your strategy.
Have any questions, or would you like to book a no-strings attached discovery call with me? Feel free to DM me on Instagram (@angelinahongmedia) or email me at angelina[at]angelina-hong.com!