Top Tips to Keep Your Social Media Content Relevant to Your Audience

If you haven’t gotten on social media to promote your business yet, it’s not too late to start. Did you set up a profile once but have since abandoned it because you found the whole process overwhelming or didn’t achieve the immediate response you expected? 

Like anything worth doing, staying relevant on social media takes work. It’s nice to have a place where you can connect with your target audience in real-time, but that doesn’t mean they’ll be easy to find right out of the gate. There are right, and wrong, ways to use social media for a business and we’ve seen it all!

Here are our top tips for staying relevant on social media as a business: 

Creating Original Content for Your Brand

Anytime you update your website, create marketing materials, or post on social media – you are creating content. Content Marketing is a broad term describing any copy, design, or video elements you create for your brand and then share with your audience. Much of content marketing happens online via a company’s website and social media channels. 

What tends to happen with small businesses, or businesses new to social media, is that they spend the bulk of their time sharing content that other people have created. The idea behind this strategy is to have a consistent presence on social, but it doesn’t work well because you are not actually making an impact with your audience in regards to your own business or brand. Often you are sending your audience away – to some other brand creator’s social media account. 

“To positively impact your audience and your bottom line, your content must be tied to your business.” Christina Perricone, Hubspot

This means that you have to invest time, energy, and money into creating original content around what you do, why you do it, and who you do it for. What’s the point of following you on social media if you have nothing original or interesting to say? 

To stay relevant on social, you need to be sharing informational, inspirational, educational, or entertaining posts, images, audio, and video to earn the attention and trust you need to convert your followers into customers.

How to Stay Relevant on Social Media

After 15 years in the social media marketing space, my team has noticed definite trends in what does (and doesn’t) work well when it comes to social marketing. 

If you want to stay relevant on social as a brand, here’s what you need to avoid:

  • Posting content that directs people away from your channel or website.
  • Focusing too much on sales and not enough on relationship-building.
  • Not having a clear call to action.
  • Neglecting to share your brand stories.
  • Only posting when inspiration strikes instead of being consistent.
  • Not paying attention to current events and ensuring your content is not insensitive. 
  • Not being responsive to people who engage with your posts.
  • Posting text only posts on visual platforms.
  • Not taking advantage of hashtags. 
  • Posting content that is overly personal OR posting content that is completely impersonal (this requires a somewhere-in-the-middle approach).
  • Trying to be everywhere all at once. 
  • Speed through setting up your social media profile(s).

While that’s not a comprehensive list, it does cover most of the basics. To stay relevant, focus on the exact opposite when it comes to sharing content:

  • Invest in creating original content about and for your business.
  • Follow the 80/20 rule of posting only 20% promotional or sales content and 80% content that is entertaining, educational, informational, or inspirational.
  • Let your audience know what you want them to do next. Don’t leave the next move up to their imaginations.
  • Know your brand stories and get comfortable sharing them in creative ways to help your audience get to know, like, and trust you.
  • Build an editorial calendar to help you stay consistent when posting on social media.
  • When something big happens in the world, double-check that the content you have created and scheduled isn’t insensitive or untimely.
  • Create time to engage with people on your chosen social media platforms and respond to those who have taken the time to engage with you. People can tell if you are simply posting and walking away. Social media is meant to be social.
  • We highly recommend using attention-grabbing visuals and video in your social media strategy.
  • Learn to love hashtags – what they are, how they are used, and how they can help your content get found!
  • You want to establish a connection with your audience by being the real, authentic you but remember that being too personal, too early is actually a turn-off for people. Keep your eye on sharing content about your brand and establishing relationships with folks.
  • No one can be a master at all the social media platforms at once. Pick 1 or 2 that you like using and start there.
  • Take advantage of all the characters and space a social media platform gives you on your profile pages. A robust profile will often convert strangers into followers and followers into customers – plus those added keywords help you get found!

Does this mean that you have to do everything yourself to stay relevant on social media? Of course not! You can absolutely hire an experienced social media manager to help you establish a social media strategy, create original content, and stay consistent on your channels. However, understanding how this works will help you stay relevant and on top of your own social media marketing success.

When to Shift Your Message

It seems like there’s a new fire to put out every week anymore, but that’s no reason to check-out. This is especially true if you have a social media presence for your business. It only takes one big news story to change your content from being humorous to being offensive and brands don’t always see it coming. 

It helps if a business understands their BIG vision for their work and the impact they want to make in the world. This process gives a small business owner a compass for decision-making. It helps for that founder, and their audience, to know right away where the company stands on any particular topic. 

Since most social media crises happen out of the blue, it’s important to establish a social media crisis response plan for your business. Create a social media policy, make certain your accounts are secure with strong passwords and an authentication process, and don’t be afraid to pause your scheduled posts to ride out a potentially-damaging wave, if something troublesome arises.

When You Need Support

Every social media platform is searchable. Do you have the right keywords and information on your profiles? Is your messaging current? Did you take advantage of all the space available so that it’s easier for your audience to find you and resonate with what you do? 

Now is the time to revamp your social media channels to get found by your people so you can make a bigger impact with your work. Every word matters. We help small businesses, like yours, maximize the potential of their profiles. Book a session with us to find out about our Robust Profile Optimizations for social media!


Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+YouTubePinterestInstagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media TrainingSpeaking and Strategy Consultations.

#BioOptimization – What is Social Media Bio Optimization?

You already know that your social media profiles are important because they’re your best chance of making a good first impression. What you may not know, however, is that they can help you get found. In other words, they are searchable.

So how do you optimize your social media bios to ensure that they help you get visibility when someone searches for you or your company?

Here are five tips to help you make sure that when people are looking for you, they can find you:

  • Choose your words carefully: Like standard SEO, social media bio optimization requires that you choose keywords that sum up your brand. You don’t want to overdo it, but you do want to make sure that you use keywords that will help you attract the kind of customers you want. Often you are limited in characters, so, be clear, concise and strategic in your copy.
  • Be consistent across sites: While some people use a variety of platforms, you may only get one shot to get your message out. Be sure that the information you provide tells a consistent story about your brand and broadcasts the same message no matter what platform your customers use to find you.
  • Use what you’ve got: Each social media platform has unique requirements and limitations as far as the length of your profile goes. You want to make the most of all the space you have. Twitter, for example, gives you 160 characters including spaces. That’s not much room, but it does give you enough space for a pithy description. A little humor might not hurt either. The important thing is that people can find you and that you leave a good impression.
  • Use links where appropriate: Where you can, link to your website and other profiles. You want to make it easy on your audience to see whatever is essential all in one place if you can.
  • Put your best face forward: In addition to links and keywords, your bio should showcase your best content, media, and other information that will help to build your authority.

The point of optimizing your social media bios is so that people can find you and to make it easier for them to learn about you. Keep in mind that finding the right keywords and preparing a summary that shows you in the best possible light can be tricky. If you want to ensure that you are hitting the mark, consider getting expert assistance. The prepackaged services offered by the Social Media Advisor can help you build your social media and revamp your profile to guarantee that you get found.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+YouTubePinterestInstagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media TrainingSpeaking and Strategy Consultations.

#BioOptimization – How Searchable Are Social Media Profiles?

When you think about doing an online search the first tool that comes to mind is probably Google. There’s a good reason for that. Google remains the most significant player in the search engine market, and it has a lot of power. However, for all its dominance, Google isn’t the only player out there. Bing, Yahoo, Ask, and some smaller engines all do their part.

Moreover, while some other important platforms may not come to mind, they shouldn’t be ignored. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media platforms are all important elements when it comes to search.

There are lots of statistics to back up the claim that social media platforms can be classified as search engines. When people are looking for information on companies or trying to make a buying decision, social media networks are often the first place they turn.

In 2010, for example, Twitter had 19 billion search queries a month, Facebook 1 billion, and YouTube 2.7 billion. Those are big numbers by any measure.

So it’s fair to say that social media plays a significant role in terms of search.

What that means for social media managers is that you need to pay a lot of attention to what you are posting in terms of overall SEO. You must also know the mechanics of each social media platform so that you show up in their search results. So, if you don’t already have enough to do, optimizing your social media profiles for search needs to be high on the top of your list.

One good way to see how well your profile is working is to search for yourself. The goal is to see what your potential customers see when they find you. Here are some key questions you should ask yourself?

  • Is your profile consistent across platforms?
  • Is all the information presented up-to-date?
  • Do you have engaging visuals?
  • Is the purpose of the profile clear?
  • Are you using appropriate keywords in a way that makes sense?
  • Does the most important information stand out?
  • Do you monitor what is posted regularly?

Even if you have done all the right things when it comes to creating and optimizing your social media profiles, nothing beats having an outside expert take a look and tell you what they see. Even better, why not consider outsourcing your social media. What could be better than having SEO friendly profiles that are maintained and managed consistently?

You owe it to yourself to see what the Social Media Advisor offers when it comes to managing your social media. Their top-notch social media revamp and management packages will help you go back to what you do best, managing your business.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedInFacebookTwitterBlogGoogle+YouTubePinterestInstagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media TrainingSpeaking and Strategy Consultations.

#FreshContent – Time to Optimize Your Social Media Bios & Profiles

If you use social media, then you know that the first commandment is “Thou Shalt Keep Your Content Up-To-Date.” Your followers will stop checking in if they see the same thing over and over again. Though you’re working hard to keep your feeds fresh and appealing, you might be overlooking these important elements of your social media channels: your bios and profiles.

If you have a social media strategy (of course you do!) is optimizing and updating your social media bios and profiles on the list? If not, add them to the top of the list. This to-do is easy to forget, and it’s even easier to underestimate how important it is.

What Your Followers See

What do your followers see when they look at your profile photo? Do they see what you look like right now? If not then it’s a good bet that some of your information may be out of date. Your picture should present a fresh look at your smiling face, and your profile information should be current. Even though you may think the photo looks fine if your hairstyle and fashion sense are dated then your community may interpret that as a lack of interest.

Remember, your profile photo usually has a prominent position so you can use it strategically as well. It doesn’t always have to be a picture of you or your logo. It can be a new product, a special announcement, or something else you are calling attention to. Links must work, and the description of your business should accurately represent what you are doing right now.

What the Search Engines See

You may not have given it much thought, but your social media profile is important to your SEO. Your profile should include the keywords and terms that are crucial to people finding you. What you say should be consistent across platforms, be carefully crafted, and be engaging. Long-tail keywords are particularly important so that your customers can find you.

Each social media platform is viewed a little differently so it can pay to do a little homework on what works best for each. Algorithms have become particularly important in recent years so if you haven’t updated your business description in some time you may not be making the most of it in SEO terms.

Freshen Up!

It’s true that you don’t need to update your profile as frequently as you do your content but your profile should not be neglected. Twice a year may be often enough to freshen things up. The specific schedule will depend on what is happening in your business and your industry. In any case, now is a great time to take a fresh look at both your bios and your profiles.

Be sure to Follow us and Let’s Engage!

Hollie Clere of The Social Media Advisor is a “#BeAwesome” Developer, Social Media, Brand Builder, Content Manager, Trainer and Author in LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Blog, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Instagram, and the tools to manage them.

Click here for Social Media Training, Speaking and Strategy Consultations.


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