Everyone’s on social media these days, but that doesn’t mean everyone knows how to use it. If you use social media as an outlet for your personal brand or business, or to connect with other people with shared interests, it’s crucial to learn how to level up your social media game.
Anyone can use these tips to make their profiles more popular and engaging. Reflect on your content and why you’re on social media to get started with making your online presence more successful.
1. Create a Cohesive Voice
Imagine making a friend in real life. One day, they’re passionate about discussing rock climbing techniques and the latest deals on supplies. The next day, they only want to think about how to become a five-star chef. The whiplash between personal interests would make you feel disconnected from them because you wouldn’t have a solid foundation for your friendship.
Online brands and personal accounts can have the same problem. You must create a cohesive voice to help your followers feel like they know you or your business. Specific word choices and post formatting can make that possible.
2. Pick Branding Elements
Your personal or business brand needs aesthetically pleasing elements to link your profiles. Clashing colors in a background picture or confusing images on an Instagram account are warning flags to potential followers – they’ll assume you don’t know how to operate your account.
Level up your social media game by researching aesthetic branding elements like correlating color schemes, your preferred font, and limited filters for photos. When everything looks cohesive, your followers will trust and enjoy your content more easily.
3. Recognize and Block Digital Bullies
Successful people on social media spend much of their time on their profiles. That means reading through comments to see if your followers enjoy your content and filtering through messages they might send.
Negative responses can affect your mental health and even hurt your followers. No one wants to follow a brand or influencer if hateful trolls dominate their comment sections. Bullies may also stalk hashtags and harass people sharing content, even if they don’t work with a brand or influencer.
Set virtual boundaries by recognizing and blocking digital bullies. Recent research found that it was easier to identify these bullies by matching timestamps and word choices between comments to pinpoint accounts created by a single user. You can also block anyone who’s sending hate specific to your account’s purposes or beliefs.
4. Set a Posting Schedule
Most people have experienced a common social media problem. You might find an account you love, follow it, and realize it only posts a few times a month. Maybe it posts as little as a few times per year.
No one wants to follow essentially inactive accounts. Set a posting schedule to update your feed at least two or three times per day to maintain an interactive following.
5. Post at Popular Times
Consider which social media platforms you prefer. People use them differently at various points throughout the day, which research backs up. Facebook users prefer searching their feeds in the afternoon during most weekdays but only in the evenings on Thursdays. Learning the specific times for preferred platforms will help you connect with your followers while they’re online.
It’s also in your best interest to monitor your account’s unique engagement stats to learn when your followers are most receptive to your content. Depending on their age, schedules, and the purpose of your content, they may demonstrate slightly different habits than what research predicts.
6. Focus on Core Themes
If you follow an account to learn about fitness tips, you expect to see daily content about exercising or recovery strategies. If the brand posts about a dozen other topics unrelated to fitness, you might unfollow the account because you don’t know what to expect on any given day.
Pick two or three themes to tie your content together. You’ll set a purpose for your account by narrowing down what your posts will cover. You could even divide your schedule by theme, like posting about dog content on weekdays and dog health tips on the weekends. It depends on how you want your posts to help people and when your followers are most active.
7. Compose Evergreen Posts
Shareable content is the best type of content. You’ll get more interactions with it past the original posting date because there isn’t a one-time event or subject limiting its shareability.
Consider making evergreen content that people can use throughout the year to level up your social media game. You’ll create more actionable posts that make people want to follow your accounts and share each post with their own followers.
8. Repost Your Popular Content
Social media experts learn to balance how often they post new and old content. You don’t want to post more of your old content than fresh posts because you’ll bore your audience. However, you’ll gain new followers who may benefit from topics you’ve already covered in the past.
Remember to post older topics every so often to catch your new followers up to speed. They may learn something new while the same posts remind your older followers of tips you’ve suggested in the past. As long as there’s always more new content than recycled information, you’ll find your stride in a healthy balance.
9. Write a Descriptive Bio
Making a good first impression is always essential. Although people may find your profile through one of your viral posts, they’ll likely decide to follow you after reading your profile bio.
Reflect on your current bio to see if it needs refreshing. You could use it to list a fun fact about you, the goals of your profile or business, and any links to a personal website or online shop that your followers may be interested in. Social media users will quickly understand whether they should follow you or not based on what’s interesting about your bio.
10. Remember Personal Content, Too
Unless you’re running an online business where your name and face aren’t involved in the branding, it’s good to share personal content every once in a while. You could align a personal post with your brand’s niche topics or use your account to share something from a separate personal account.
People love learning more about influencers or the geniuses behind their favorite brands. Updating followers about a new product you’re excited about developing, an industry revelation, or a personal success story will establish a personal connection that encourages followers to stick around for more content.
