I’m sure you have heard the phrase: there is always room for improvement. Well, the same goes for your social strategy this month. If you are not as social as you want to be, you simply have not had time, or you are not sure how to be more social then keep reading. You can completely change your social plan of action in the next thirty days by implementing some of these things to your company pages.
Be On the Share Everything Plan
If you want your content to be shared, you need to add social buttons and make it easier for people to do that. Encourage people to share your content by making it easy for them and give them several different options among different social platforms. You should also be sharing content across all social platforms to reach a larger and bigger variety audience. Every social network has their own personality, and you need to determine which platform is good to distribute certain content through.
Keywords Are Key
SEO and social are becoming more co-dependent on each other and including your keywords on social will only work to your benefit. This will help your social content rank in search engines as well as having a bigger and stronger voice online. The more you use a keyword, the stronger word association it has with your company on that platform. Be sure to include a variety of your keywords and not just focus on one.
Don’t Be Afraid to Tag
Hashtag that is—almost every social site is hashtag friendly now, and it really helps to expand your reach with your posts and stand out more. Hashtags are a great way to incorporate keywords, or to draw attention to a specific subject. Hashtags are also a way for new people to discover your content based on what hashtags they are searching. Keep this in mind when tagging your next post.
Be Personal
A main role of being on social media is to engage with your followers on a more personal level. You want to make sure your follower’s voices are being heard and that they feel valued. Respond to their comments and questions and address them using their first name. Some brands do an outstanding job at this and their customers appreciate their efforts.
Be a Social Butterfly
You can not be all things to all people; or can you? Be on the social networks that make sense for your business and industry as long as you can handle it. It does not matter if it is one or five as long as your are connecting on a personal level, staying active, and realizing the difference and sole purpose of each social platform.
Check Pinterest Search Results
Google is now putting a better emphasis on content coming from Pinterest in their attempts to be more picture oriented. In order to make sure that your pins are being recognized by search engines, you should check your privacy settings. Under settings> search privacy> make sure that the switch is on “No” in order to have your content picked up by search engines.
Google Authorship Is a Must
Google is not playing around anymore, articles that have a Google Authorship attached to it will have a higher ranking than ones without it. Since quality content is becoming more important, it is even better to attach a name and a face to it. Google Authorship links to your Google+ profile so that a picture appears next to articles you write.
Have a Complete Profile Page
This is your first and only impression sometimes with people stumbling across your profile page on social networks. You want to make sure that you are representing yourself in the best light possible by having a complete profile. Make sure that you have a profile picture, cover photo, your about section filled out and linked out to your website, and that you post regularly. All of these things will make people more excited to connect and engage with your company profile.
Be Up Front About What You Are On
I’m sure you have had a hard time finding people or companies on certain social sites or had to do a bit of digging in order to find them. Not everyone will want to follow you that badly, so make it easy for people to find you on social networks. Link out to them on your website and put them in a prominent place on your homepage. Cross promoting on social networks is also a positive thing. Post something on Pinterest and link to it through your Twitter account. There is nothing wrong with asking your followers on Facebook to follow you on Google+, LinkedIn, Pinterest, or Twitter. This is a great way to get a strong following among all of your social sites and to drive traffic to ones people may not have known you were on.
Adapt To the Platform
This branches off of being a social butterfly. You can share the same content across all platforms if you need to, but you need to modify it to the social platform you are using and to your audience. Each following you have on different social networks will be different from one another. Look at what content they are interested in and how they respond to your posts to get a better feel for what will be successful and what will not.
Being dedicated to changing how you interact with your followers on social sites is the most important thing to keep in mind. You need to plan, stay active, listen to your followers, and keep a close eye on your competition. Social media can get over-whelming, but if you stay at it you can see your return on investment and all of your hard work paying off.