Social media is a great place to get in front of new customers, connect with your community, create long-lasting relationships with your customers, build more awareness of your brand and more. But, it’s not like this will happen overnight, especially when it comes to building an organic presence through social media management.

Building an effective social media presence takes time, and every business owner, at some point or another, has been stuck in a position where they feel like their business’s social media page isn’t reaching the number of people they’d like it to.

Small business owners are busy, and it makes sense that when they aren’t seeing the kind of results they want to on social media, many will let their social media presence fall by the wayside.

For some, social presence neglect may originate from not knowing where to start or not having enough time to devote, and for others, it could be out of pure frustration. Whatever the reason, there are many little things you can do to breathe new life into your social media presence, starting with your social media page.

3 tips to improve your business’s social media page

#1. Post consistently

First and most importantly, make sure you’re posting consistently. I recommend posting an average of 16 times per month, or 4 times a week. This helps boost brand awareness by simply being a constant on your audience’s feed!

Aside from that, having a consistent posting schedule tells consumers that your brand is very much active and that you can still provide the product or service they need.

To help with organization, try using a content calendar, where you can plan your posts ahead of time. I personally like to use a spreadsheet so that I can include the date, caption and image link for the content I am planning on posting.

When your content calendar is complete, using a social media scheduling tool, like Marketing 360® Social, to schedule out your social posts for the week or month ahead of time.

By scheduling your posts out ahead of time, you’ll have one less thing on your plate, and you’ll be able to stick with a consistent posting schedule, no matter how busy you are.

#2. Do hashtag research

Finding the perfect hashtag is a lot like the story of Goldilocks and the Three Bears. If you pick a highly popular hashtag that’s overused, your posts will likely be drowned out by all of the others associated with that hashtag. On the other hand, if the hashtag isn’t popular enough, no one is going to be able to find your posts.

You don’t want to choose a hashtag that’s too hot or too cold. You want to choose one that’s just right. To do this, you’ll need to do a little hashtag research.

You don’t need any fancy tools to do hashtag research. The Instagram search bar is a great place to start. Simply enter the hashtag you’re interested in using, and you’ll be able to see how many posts use that hashtag.

As a general rule, you want to choose hashtags that have between 10k and 300k posts.

When picking hashtags to research, try to focus on three main categories:

• Branded – Branded hashtags are going to include any phrase or name associated with your brand. As they are very specific to your brand (by design), there probably won’t be a lot of existing posts using them. Ignore the 10k to 300k posts rule for branded hashtags.
• General – General hashtags are going to be terms that are trending. For example, if I was posting a food dish, a general hashtag could be #moodfood.
• Service- or product-based – You’re also going to want to find hashtags that are specific to your product or service. An example of this would be something like #LegalServices or #DogSweaters.

There are a variety of hashtag categories out there, but these three are a good place to start.

#3. Add variety to your social content

Lastly, it’s important to add some variety to the content you’re posting. When your followers feel like they are constantly being advertised to, or they are always seeing the same kind of posts over and over again, they’ll get bored and start scrolling right past them. They may even unfollow you.

Try to add in other things to keep your followers on their toes, such as fun facts, FAQs, tips or even testimonials! Not only does variety keep your followers engaged, but it could lead to more shares or tags, which will help you reach more new users.

Though adding variety to your posts is highly encouraged, make sure to spread out your content so you can focus on providing the right amount of value, information and conversion to your consumers.

Although these tips are a great start to establishing your overall social media presence, there are still numerous things you can do to keep improving.

If you’re still feeling stuck or confused, be sure to check out Marketing 360® to learn about how our social media managers can help! With a variety of tools and resources, we’ve got you covered! See our plans and pricing. 

About the author

As a 2020 CSU Business Marketing graduate, Kalyn started working for Madwire right after college. With a passion for helping small businesses grow, she enjoys her day-to-day tasks as a social media manager. Aside from a love for marketing, she enjoys outdoor activities, spending time with family and planning a wedding with her high school sweetheart!

Originally published on 3/10/21