If you’ve been posting consistently on social media to promote your brand, I’m proud of you. It takes a lot of planning and dedication to stick to a consistent posting schedule that keeps your audience engaged.
I don’t want to be the bearer of bad news, but posting content alone isn’t enough.
I know what you’re thinking. “What??? Everyone says that posting on my socials consistently is the key to increasing my engagement.”
While that is true, posting on a consistent schedule is really on the beginning. It’s the hurdle that a lot of entrepreneurs have trouble getting over. That’s why Social Media Strategists are constantly encouraging business owners to do this.
But now that you’ve been posting regularly, you’ve graduated to phase two.
I want to share with you some of the reasons why posting content isn’t enough, and how you can increase your following and engagement by making a few subtle changes to your messaging.
Creating Brand Awareness
Strategic posting works over “random posts” every time. So yeah, those posts about what you ate for lunch may be “fun” but are they working towards your bigger goal of building industry expertise and selling your services and products?
Branding is essential to ensure that your business will succeed in the long term. It’s what makes your products and services memorable and sets you apart from your competitors. It’s the reason why Coke and Pepsi sell essentially the same product, but have completely different messaging and their own base of loyal customers.
A few things you can do to increase your brand awareness are:
- Being consistent with your messaging
- Only post images and text that align with your purpose
- Develop a cohesive visual theme for your socials
- Find your brand’s voice
- Is your brand’s voice going to be funny and sarcastic like Wendy’s on twitter? Or will you have a more serious tone? Customers will be able to recognize you easier when you have a distinctive voice *Your audience should know your posts even if they couldn’t see a graphic from you*
- Optimize your Bio
- Keep it short, sweet, and to the point
- Avoid posting irrelevant info
- Don’t leave people that click on your page guessing about what you do and what your values are
Now that you’re developing brand awareness, it’s time to hone in on your audience
Talking to your ideal customer
Your messaging should be directed towards a very specific person – your ideal customer
Take a moment to brainstorm. Get out a pen and paper and scratch down the answers to the following questions.
What is your perfect customer’s…
Age?
Gender?
Profession?
Fears?
Hopes, dreams, and desires?
Note anything else about your dream client that you think is important.
Knowing the answers to these questions will help you immensely. You’ll be able to speak directly to the people who are interested in your business as opposed to just shouting into the void.
Think about it. If your ideal customer is a male in their 60’s, you are going to implement a completely different strategy than you would if your target audience is teenage girls.
Not only will this affect the messages and visuals you post, it will impact your consistency and the platforms you post on.
For example, content for an older audience will perform better on Facebook and Email than Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok.
On the other hand, teenagers wouldn’t be caught dead on Facebook. It would make more sense to double down on platforms like Instagram and Snapchat than to waste time developing content for another medium that your target market does not engage on.
The more specific your messaging is tailored to your ideal customer, the more likely your audience will relate to your brand and eventually make a purchase.
Choose power words in your email campaigns, social media, and blog content
Language is powerful. Even a slight change in wording can mean the difference between someone opening your email and making a purchase or unsubscribing from your content entirely.
A few guidelines that will help you with your word choice are:
- Be specific
Studies have shown that people are more likely to honor your requests when you include a specific reason why you need them in your question.
For example, one study found that simply rewording a request to explain “I’m in a rush” made people more likely to let the person behind them cut in line.
Clearly stating the reasons why you are asking your followers to click the link in your bio or purchase a product will increase the chances of you making a sale. On top of that, being specific makes you seem more credible and trustworthy. Remember: don’t be too vague.
- Use Power Words in the right places
It’s important to use words that subtly encourage your audience to choose your business over your competitors.
There have been studies that have concluded that certain words are better for encouraging your subscribers to take actions that align with your mission.
When you write material for your business, it would be wise to search for words that are best for your brand and target market. After you find out which words will help you achieve your goals, you need to know how to use them appropriately.
Think of power words as a tool. You can use them to build a beautiful structure, or you can use them to cause destruction. Using these words sparingly and in the appropriate places will make your readers more engaged with your content.
Remember to use power words in:
Titles
Headlines
Email subject lines
First and last paragraphs
Comment sections
Calls to action
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Using power words effectively will not only make your audience more likely to read your content, it also helps you appear first in search engine results (see search engine optimization). This competitive edge will bring more traffic to your website and ultimately lead to more sales.
When to sell and when to build community
Social media should not be a one way conversation. If you only post content that you think will encourage people to make a purchase, you won’t have great results.
Building community is extremely important when engaging on your socials, and there are different ways to build community on each platform.
On Instagram, for example, a lot of community building will happen in the comment section. Not only should you be responding to every comment on your posts, you should also be engaging in the comment section on other people’s content.
A simple way to do this is to make relevant comments on posts under hashtags that reflect your brand. This will result in more clicks on your page. But more importantly, it will establish you as an important figure in an online community. If people see you commenting on similar posts frequently, awareness of your brand will increase as well.
Gary Vaynerchuk, a successful marketer, uses this strategy for organic growth and calls it the $1.80 instagram strategy. It’s simple. Just give your “2 cents” (a relevant comment) on 90 posts a day to bring more attention to your feed. You can read more about how Gary successfully employed this technique here.
Although building community is vital to having a successful brand, it’s important to maintain balance. Don’t focus so much on building community in groups and comment sections that you forget to post quality content consistently. And don’t post so much that you forget that there are real people on the other end of the screen.
Tiffany Garside | Copywriter + Content Strategist
Bonus Tips for Content That Converts
There’s a few more things I want to share with you before I sign off.
- Blogging is not outdated. It is a great way to broaden your reach and establish industry expertise
- If you have trouble writing content for your business, you can hire a ghostwriter. Some of the best selling authors did not write their books
- Email is still a relevant form of marketing and has higher conversion rates than social media posts
So, now you have a lot of work to do. Since you are already posting consistently, its time to step your game up. It’s time to increase your brand awareness, develop your voice, use power words, and build community.
Does that seem overwhelming to you right now? If so, that’s completely understandable. Schedule a free Discovery Call so we can curate original content for your business and increase sales!
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