In today’s digital marketplace, a well-thought-out and integrated social media marketing strategy is essential for most companies. Social media is a powerful way for businesses of all sizes to reach prospects and customers. When starting out, it can be a challenge to develop a social media audience who will engage with and respond to your content and brand. To make it easier, we’ve compiled 20 tips to launch your strategy.

Social Media Audience Strategy

1. Start with your employees. Most of your employees already have social media profiles and can support your company by following you on social media.
2. Follow your clients, prospects and industry experts. Show your support and interest in companies and individuals with whom you work. This often leads to mutual support.
3. Learn and utilize different messaging systems, both public and private. Each social media platform comes with a different communication system such as InMail, DM, Facebook Messenger and others. With the average person receiving approximately 90 emails per day, reaching out via alternative methods can give you a competitive edge.
4. Keep individual and company profiles current. Ensure social media profiles are thorough, complete and brand aligned. Keep links organized and content concise.
5. Optimize your profile for organic search. Just like any other webpage, social media is affected by SEO. Social profiles are often among the first 5 results when researching a company or individual so familiarize yourself with SEO terms and best practices to maximize link building and keywords.
6. Enhance content for on-site search. In addition to search engines such as Google or Bing, social media platforms come with their own built-in search programs called “on-site search engines.” Results are determined by different algorithms, but are largely keyword based. Select tags and hashtags carefully.
7. Share relevant expertise to showcase your company. Informational content such as blogs, articles, white papers, videos, infographics and more are highly sharable. Discover and address the challenges of your target market to stay on their radar and become a known resource.
8. Post relevant company news to stay current and maintain transparency. Social media is rapidly becoming one of our main sources for news and trends and is one of the channels we consume and share the most. For example, 53% of professionals say getting access to company news is why they joined LinkedIn in the first place.
9. Create a content schedule. In order to keep up with the competition, a consistent frequency of contact program is essential. Make content production and distribution a habit.
10. Discover and learn about your audience. Every product and service has a target market. Use social media to discover who your most responsive social media audience is and monitor to see if they convert to a customer. Learn about their challenges and demonstrate the ways you can address them.
11. Engage with the followers you already have. Whether they’re clients or unqualified leads, followers who engage with your content already are valuable. Seek to build relationships with them to encourage continued support.
12. Understand the trends of the platform. All social media platforms are a little different. Twitter is based largely around text, opinion and news. Instagram highlights photos, graphics and personal subjects. LinkedIn centers on business and networking. Hone in on the specifics of each platform to distribute content appropriate and maximize its use.
13. Join groups. Most platforms have a version of groups or forums. They are user created for the purpose of shared interests, expertise or so on. By joining relevant groups, it’s easier to become a part of like-minded communities to discover new audience members and stay on top of news and trends. Better yet, create a group centered around your niche industry or expertise.
14. Link back across all platforms. Connecting social media platforms, your website and external content is a necessary practice. Always ensure readers are able to find their way back to you or your company page.
15. Utilize built-in analytics tools to study trends. Discover which topics and formats resonate most with your target audience. Adjust your focus and strategy accordingly.
16. Share other experts’ content. When you’re not sharing your own expertise, mix in the thought leadership of your peers, including links to their profiles. This builds a network and also keeps your feed full of interesting and useful expertise.
17. Use images and video. A variety of content mediums will invite new readers and satisfy current ones. After written articles, videos and images are the most engaging types of content on social media.
18. Include a call to action in your social media posts. A simple “follow us” or “sign up for our newsletter” lets the readers know where to go next and how to find you. You can send them to your website or on to more related content.
19. Limit overly promotional content. Social media posts are more about information, opinion and individuality. Save self-promotional content for ads.
20. Allow multiple admins to access accounts. With the many facets of social media  platforms, splitting responsibilities among team members can improve productivity.  Encourage multiple users to build connections, interact with content and generate material to cast a wider net.

Best Practices

Quality is priority when it comes to content marketing, but without an audience, even the best content can waste away. The internet and social media have changed the game for publishing and distribution. Online content is abundant, and to maintain an edge, discover and use best practices to reach and cultivate your social media audience.