You’re on social media because you’re supposed to be. You post to it regularly. You try to engage with followers. You try to post interesting links.
So why isn’t your social media presence a big deal?
In a world where you can count total social media members by the billions, it’s easy to forget that this isn’t a novelty anymore. This is a way of life. And if your social media presence has no electricity to it, it’s not because you’re not trying—it’s simply because you’re not doing the things that will get your social media to stand out. The question is: how do you stand out? Here are some tips for doing just that:
Tip #1: Decide What You Want Your Followers to Remember
When you post to social media, you’re immediately just another vine in the jungle. Who’s going to remember your particular vine, and why should they remember it in the first place?
Becoming distinctive means starting off with an idea of the idea you want to communicate to your audience. Once you choose what it is you want your followers to remember, you’ll have a better time due to the following factors:
- You can repeat a message you’ve chosen. According to some statistics, people will forget about 70% of what they learn, even when they’re in the process of dedicated training. How much more dismal are your odds of being remembered when you’re posting in the social media jungle? The more you can repeat your central points, the better a chance you stand at getting remembered.
- Slogans are easier to remember. Why do so many companies trend toward using slogans? Because “where’s the beef?” was a veritable cultural phenomenon in the 1980s. Why not use those same principles to give your own brand a slogan that people are more likely to remember and maybe even repeat themselves? And you can’t craft a slogan until you decide what it is that you want your followers to remember.
Tip #2: Try More
You’ve heard the expression: “less is more.” The less you communicate on social media, the more unique it will be when you do communicate, right?
Not necessarily.
In Grant Cardone’s book “The 10X Rule,” Cardone articulates an interesting hypothesis: most people never get exposed enough to venture over to overexposure. Instead, Cardone contends, the real fear should be obscurity.
Look at your social media presence and ask yourself if you’ve been posting enough. Have you created enough posts to use Twitter Analytics and get an idea of what your audience most responds to? Have you been posting enough to encourage participation amongst your followers?
It’s tempting to see those who unfollow you for seeing too many of your Tweets as a natural inhibition against trying more things with your social media account. But don’t let these stop you. You can always scale your posting back if you decide that it’s too much. For now, the best thing to do is to learn more, find more, and ultimately, try more.
Tip #3: Take the Time to Create Value
Ever wonder why you put in five minutes a week to schedule your social media posts, week in and week out, and aren’t getting any traction?
It’s probably because of that whole “five minutes a week” part.
You can’t expect people to exactly flock to your social media account if you don’t provide anything of value. What makes you worth following? What unique insights do you have? What fascinating links? What’s going on in the world that you can use to create discussion amongst your followers?
If you don’t ask yourself those questions on a regular basis—even unconsciously—then there’s a good chance that you’re not doing enough to invigorate your social media presence with real value.
Here are a few ways you can make your Tweets and Facebook statuses more worthy of user engagement:
- Put something in it for them. For example, when’s the last time you created a poll? People like to put in their own two cents and see where the poll takes them. At the very least, you should try to encourage your followers to engage with you. Give them a reason to want to get engaged.
- Create visuals. Even something as simple as downloading a stock photograph and sharing it with your recent post can increase user engagement. Use services like Unsplash to download free stock photography that’s of higher quality than most. Better yet, use Canva to create your own visuals with a little more research and forethought.
Tip #4: Challenge Your Audience
These tips are all well and good—until you realize that there are other social media-savvy users on your list who are already doing them.
What can you do to further separate yourself from the rest?
Consider challenging your audience. Rather than posting blogs and links to articles with information they already know, ask yourself what they don’t know. Where are their weaknesses? What assumptions do they make that aren’t on solid ground? How might you highlight that and stir up a little discussion?
You don’t want to be deliberately provocative, but you should be willing to challenge your audience with interesting content that sometimes shows the other side of an issue.
By all means, continue following the directives of Forbes and their 25 ways to grow your social media presence—those are good habits that you’ll want to incorporate from the very beginning.
But when you use a tool like SEMRush, try to discover topics that are already working for you. Find the most interesting and controversial positions on your blog. Post up polls about it. Ask users for their opinions. Every once in a while, try to stir your regular following on social media so you aren’t only broadcasting the same old song-and-dance to people who have heard it before. With enough persistence and effort, you’ll find what it takes to generate more engagement from your following and will build up a more electric presence online.
