LinkedIn, Google+, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook, Pinterest. These are some of the many and most well-known social media platforms available for companies to reach out to prospects and customers. And the people using them is staggering. There are over 300 million LinkedIn members, more than 645 million active registered Twitter users and over 1 billion active Facebook users. Forty percent of users check LinkedIn daily; almost 50 percent log into Facebook daily and an average of 58 million tweets are sent each day (Statistics from www.statisticbrain.com and www.LinkedIn.com). But is this necessarily a good thing? Or is there just too much noise on social media?

Many marketers are obsessed with the numbers game. They stress about how many followers they have and how many tweets/posts are sent out. However, they are overlooking the main point of social media: to connect with others by providing relevant content thatinitiates meaningful dialogues. You can’t help but wonder whether the large volume of people “talking” on social media is worth the time to market your company, products and services on these sites. In most cases, the answer is yes, with the caveat that more noise is not better noise. Rather, it’s important to find your target audience on these sites and focus on connecting with them.

More Noise Is Not Better Noise

Here are a few tips to help you break through the noise and get your target audience to notice you through social media marketing.

• Determine if the tweet or post is interesting or beneficial to your prospects and customers. If not, rewrite it so it has a purpose and doesn’t just add to the clatter.
• Use keywords, phrases and hashtags that appeal to your target market.
• Vary the timing of your posts to see what works best for reaching your audience. Peak time isn’t always the best time as you are competing with everyone else posting at that time.
• Keep it simple by using short words and sentences.
• Use the 80/20 rule: compose 80 percent of your posts about helping your target market solve a problem and the other 20 percent about your company and services.
• Always respond to comments about your posts to encourage conversations with interested parties.

Remember, you aren’t trying to reach everyone on social media with each post. What you really want to do is attract your target audience and rise above the noise.