According to the latest figures available, Twitter has more than 320 million monthly active users. Facebook welcomes more than a billion unique individuals to its platform over the course of a given month.
Those are impressive numbers. Surely, with so much traffic in the offing, your social media platforms could stand to pick up a bit more of the slack?
They can — and they will, if you give them the opportunity. That requires a focused investment in improving the site elements essential to your engagement metrics: graphics, descriptions, post content, and more. It’ll also require a close analysis of what works well for social media users like yourself (and your organization) and what pratfalls you’ll need to avoid.
Below, we discuss 11 strategies that you can implement without delay to improve your professional or corporate social media presence. Together, they have the power to boost engagement with your social properties and ultimately increase conversions attributable to those properties. But you’ve got to put in the work.
Let’s get started.
1. Know Where You Stand
First, you need to know where you stand. Take a look at this list of reliable social media analytics tools and start thinking about which would make the most sense to, well, make sense of your social media arsenal. You can also use built-in analytics tools, as well; Facebook has a powerful package of such tools, and in fairly beginner-friendly form.
Your aim here is to understand where you’re already doing well, where you’re falling short, and where you have room to grow. What you glean from your social media analysis will help point the way forward for your social media engagement strategy.
2. Make It Clear What You Stand For
Now it’s time to get to work. Start by ensuring that your social media profiles clearly convey what you and your organization stand for. This Twitter profile for Asiaciti Trust, an international trust and corporate services provider, is a great example: It should be clear from a quick glance that Asiaciti Trust is in the fiduciary and administrative services business.
3. Post About What You Know
Once you’ve made sure your social profiles are clear about what you do, it’s time to strategize around posting. The most important point to remember here is to stay in your lane as much as possible (ideally, all of the time). That is, you need to post about what you really do know, not what you think you know or think you should talk about because you’re personally interested in it. Call it the “subject matter expertise” rule.
4. Separate the Personal and the Professional
If it’s not already clear, these strategies apply to professional and corporate social media accounts. It’s entirely your call if you’d like to use social media for personal reasons as well; most of us do. But do so on a separate account that doesn’t engage at all with your corporate or professional account.
5. Use High-Quality Graphics and GIFs to Make Your Points
The more high-quality graphics, GIFs, and memes you can post that make sense in the context of your post content, the better. This is true even on media that aren’t traditionally thought of as “visual-first,” like Twitter. Audiences love visuals.
6. Post Videos Occasionally, But Don’t Overload Your Audience
Audiences love videos, too. The catch here is that many users’ social media accounts are set to autoplay videos in their feeds, which can be distracting and potentially annoying (especially in quiet settings). This alone shouldn’t stop you from posting videos, but you don’t want to post a new one every hour and probably want to save the bulk of your longer-form video content for video-specific channels, like YouTube.
7. Draw in Your Followers With Questions and Polls
Every social media user likes a good poll. Twitter is a great medium to embrace the joys of non-scientific popular analysis — and an even better place to drum up conversation around the results. But even non-poll audience questions (or more formal formats, like AMAs) can boost engagement.
8. Tag Influencers When Appropriate, But Don’t Spam Them
You want influencers to know who you are and why they should care, but you don’t want to annoy them. Split the difference by tagging them in content that speaks directly to their area of expertise. Many influencers genuinely enjoy being asked for their opinions or commentary about relevant issues. Why not give them what they want?
9. Optimize Your Social Media Profiles
While most social media sites have very high Domain Authority (meaning they rank well in Google), SEO tweaks still matter. Profile descriptions are especially important, so make sure yours has the keyword(s) that you’d like to rank for.
10. Choose Profile and Background Pictures That Make Sense
Your profile and background pictures should clearly convey your identity and purpose. Don’t overthink this. For an individual professional, we’re talking a professional headshot for the profile picture and perhaps a panoramic view of your hometown for the background. For companies, a team shot or logo will do.
11. Share Content From Others in Your Field (Including Competitors)
This is another way to cultivate relationships with influencers. And, even more importantly, it’s a great opportunity to cultivate meaningful conversation with your audiences. It’s okay to share content from your competitors, too; maybe they’ll do the same in return.
What’s Your Strategy to Improve Social Media Engagement?
Taken together, these 12 tips could form the foundation of a winning social media engagement strategy for your company and/or brand. Each is tailored to play on your personal or corporate strengths, reinforcing your bond with current customers and increasing your chances of forming new ones with customers-to-be.
Are these tips the only actions you should take to shore up your social media strategy? Of course not. Truly “winning” at social media demands an all-hands-on-deck approach and a tireless work ethic. In such a fickle medium, this is only to be expected.
Fortunately, if you’ve made it this far in your career, you probably don’t need any help on either front. You’re ready to roll up your sleeves and do what it takes to make an impression on your prospects.
Here’s to getting it done.