Building social media presence is not only about posting viral videos regularly. It’s a long-term strategy that requires strategic thinking and patience.
Today, setting up a business based on online presence without an actual offline store is feasible. With almost everyone spending most of their free time on social media, focusing mainly on social media marketing might be one of the most efficient strategies to grow one’s business.
However, strengthening your own brand’s social media presence can be an intriguing task to do. You might think that it’s as simple as posting something relevant to the latest internet meme, but it’s actually more than that. It requires good strategic adjustment and constant monitoring.
Opening up a company social media account is one thing, building its presence and, later, maintaining it is another. Read more to find out about social media presence and how to build it effectively.
What is Social Media Presence
HubSpot defined social media presence as the visibility a brand has on social media platforms and the connection it builds with its community. The parameter of social media presence isn’t about a strong presence. It’s about how well your brand and its targeted audience resonance. It’s about how a customer feels about your brand, not only how well they know about it.
Social media marketing is one of the most effective ways to increase a brand’s visibility. People can easily share an Instagram post about your brand, or you can utilize paid ads to draw attention to your brand. Accordingly, the more influential your social media presence is, the more people will be drawn in and become unique customers.
How to Build Social Media Presence Effectively
Strategizing social media presence is not only about posting viral videos regularly. It’s about connecting with your customers, listening to their concerns, and providing the best solution for them.
Here are some steps to build your brand’s social media presence.
Pick the Best Platform
Each social media platform has its own unique features. It’s tempting to create an account in each social media platform possible, but remember it’ll be hard to maintain them later on. Do your research and pick a platform that aligns with your business the most.
Don’t forget to ensure where your target audience are. Social media is the best way to engage with your consumers, especially if your target audiences are young people. Using the platform’s features, you can reach a wider audience and encourage them to participate in the discussions or fun posts like polls, quizzes, or Q&As.
Be Consistent
You cannot grow a solid and sincere social media presence in just one night. Of course, there are easy ways to build your audience, such as buying followers to make your follower count appear big. Yet, this inorganic growth won’t get you anywhere. Usually those accounts are bots or inactive accounts, so you won’t get real engagement with your ‘large’ audience.
The best way to build a tangible and meaningful social media presence is by organic growth. Due to the fast nature of social media, it’s essential to be active in your accounts. Being active is not only limited to posting new content—it also means replying to customers’ inquiries via direct messages or on the comment section.
Don’t be Afraid to Join the Trend
The easiest way to get attention is by riding on the current internet trends. These days, TikTok makes it possible for songs to be popular and used as a background song for short videos.
Don’t be afraid to jump in the trends, as long as it aligns with your brand’s identity and message. Trends can help you generate more traffic into your brand.
On the other side, sometimes not joining a trend altogether is necessary. Presently, customers become more aware of social issues around the world. They expect companies to be more transparent about their social stances. During times of social unrest, you need to work smartly and humanely on how you will proceed.
Prioritize Accessibility
It’s easy to forget that there are people that operate social media differently than the majority. This is why social media accessibility needs to be included in your social media marketing strategy.
Alexa Heinrich from Accessible Social stated that creating accessible social media means ensuring that everyone can access your content. No matter their physical or cognitive abilities.
Make accessibility and inclusion as part of your posting routine. For example, always add alt text to images or add subtitles to your videos, including short videos. Logically, Alexa continued, the more accessible your content is, the more people that will be able to access and engage with it. Moreover, by always including accessible content, you will stand out between your competitors who overlook this small detail.
Own Your Mistake
Making mistakes is inevitable, even though you’ve double checked every copy before it went live. However, making mistakes is part of the learning process. For instance, you can learn that a word in your Instagram copy is offensive for a certain group of people. This gives you new information to not use that word for your copy in the future.
With the cancel culture in the internet space nowadays, it can be scary to post anything at all. Yet by acknowledging your mistakes, it shows that your brand is willing to grow and become better. As Krystal Wu, the social media community manager at HubSpot stated, if you find out that you’ve made a mistake, own up to it, learn from it, and evolve into something better.
Final Thoughts
In building social media presence, it’s important to keep the audiences in mind. If you want a high engagement, you need to approach them first. Be genuine and approachable in your posts and your comments. Building a solid social media presence requires patience and resilience—it’s a long game. However, the result will be worth all the trouble.
Next read: Enhancing Organizational Success and Employee Potential with Corporate Training
