These days, the Internet is saturated with content. From funny cat videos to medical advice, it can be challenging to create meaningful content that stands out with the abundance of information, particularly on social media. The expertise behind maintaining a successful social media presence is not simply to draw attention but to retain attention. Here are some tips that can better position you to capture your audience’s attention for the long run.
- Know your audience
Knowing your target audience, or who you’re trying to appeal to, is imperative for any successful business model. This is particularly relevant to your social media presence as well. Who is going to view your posts? What kind of posts do they want to engage with? How can your product or services help them succeed or achieve their goals? How are you going to make them care about what you’re selling? These are all things to keep in mind when creating content; be it photos, videos, or blog posts, remember to give your audience what they want.
- Create content that elicits feeling
Creating content that generates an emotional response from your audience when viewing your post or product is the key to fostering an interaction between you (the company) and your potential customers. An example of successful content creation can be seen in an ad created by Wrigley’s Extra Gum in 2015 that showed the development of a love story at the center of which featured their product, that made waves all over the internet. It depicted a couple sharing a piece of gum at pivotal moments of their relationship such as when the boyfriend drew a picture of what the experience was on the gum wrapper. At the end of the advertisement, he proposes to his girlfriend by taking her to a gallery where all of his gum wrapper drawings are featured. A reason why this ad was so popular was that it made people feel something, and generally, it made them feel happy to see the romance between these two people bloom. Your posts on social media don’t have to be as elaborate as the Wrigley commercial since there are simpler ways of making people feel good. Bright colors or other imagery or language associated with happiness can also contribute to making your audience feel great every time they see your posts.
- Find influencers that are relevant to your audience
There are many brands and advertisers that reach out to celebrities for a one-off promotion of their products. This kind of promotion will work for a certain period of time by increasing sales. The sales often times return to their previous equilibrium. This is why it can pay off to collaborate with relevant social media influencers instead. You can find influencers that specialize in many different things and who have a reach over many different audiences. This makes it easier to identify someone who appeals to your target audience and help sell it to them.
- Consistency is key
According to Forbes, being consistent in how often you post across platforms really makes a difference in audience retention. Post as much as you want on Twitter and Instagram, but if one week you are posting 5 times a day and then the next week you post once you are more than likely to lose followers. To be more specific; for Twitter, the ideal number of posts a day would be 1-5. For Facebook, if you have a big following (approx. over 10,000), posting twice a day will optimize engagement. If you have less than 10,000 followers on Facebook, posting 1-5 times a month will be the best. Finally, for Instagram, there is no set number of posts a day. The key is to be consistent.
- Pay attention to trends both visual and viral
The last tip for staying relevant on social media is to be relevant. To do that you need to pay attention to what is happening on the internet and the trends that people like and seek. This can refer to internet jokes (memes), fads, fashion, or to aesthetic trends, like the color millennial pink. Whatever it is that your company sells or whatever it is that your brand is like you will be relevant if you are on top of what is current and what is happening.
Hopefully, these tips have provided you with some insight into the constantly growing and expanding world of social media and will help increase your social media following.