Susan Gilbert — October 11, 2018 — October 11, 2018
How To Build a Strong Social Media Influence
There’s a lot you can do to deliberately improve your social media influence online. After all, social media has become the main standard by which we communicate and share information – but it is also a powerful branding tool. If you can persuade others, your visibility and authority scale will rise accordingly.
According to an article from marketing expert, Shane Barker, Facebook is the number one social network where you can build credibility and establish your brand as a leader in your industry. Following that he points out is YouTube, which has the potential to create its own set of celebrities with large numbers of followers.
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It’s important to keep in mind that your social media influence is built upon meaningful interactions and original content in a format that best reaches your audience, such as live video. That means that even if you execute all these tips perfectly, it’s going to take some time before your brand builds a high level of online credibility. Treat it more like a marathon and less like a sprint.
1 – Create content people want
There are a lot of tactics you can use to boost your influence. But at the end of the day, your influence depends on whether or not people want to view or read your content.
Spend more time on developing your message then move onto your marketing. Outstanding content gets noticed, while poor content keeps your visibility and trust low.
The type of content your audience desires comes after studying your target market. Depending on your niche the top performers are:
- Video — both live and previously recorded
- Infographics and interactive images
- Podcasts and webinars
2 – Start a discussion about what matters to your community
Most social networks not only measure how much people respond to your content, but they measure how much interest is being generated. The more people comment, share, like, retweet or @mention you, the greater the chance of your brand being seen.
One great way to encourage a response is to ask controversial or hot topic questions that are relevant to your niche. This will get a lot of people talking to you and about you, which in turn provides you with the opportunity to respond and establish your knowledge on a particular topic. One of the best ways is to do this is through either a live video or a chat on Twitter, which uses a branded hashtag for people to rally behind. Many times these discussions can become new trends.
3 – Build your community hub
In the past community was built by starting a new forum on a particular subject. Today we have groups on social media, which are far easier to attract an audience to.
With just a couple posts or tweets a day your brand can start an active and engaged community. Best of all, all that activity on your social media profile is going to help give your brand visibility a strong boost.
4 – Announce big news and contests
Are you planning on launching a contest for a new book, product or service? Email and social media can go hand in hand when attracting new followers. It’s important to tell people about it on social media first and then include the message to your subscribers with sharing buttons and links.
People love talking about things that are new. There’s going to be more energy around your product when you launch it than at any other point in its lifecycle. There’s going to be more energy around a video launch than it’ll ever have at a later time.
Leverage this energy by getting people to talk about it on social media.
5 – Use the best hashtags for each platform
When you include the most popular hashtags, people are much more likely to respond and also find your content first. Each social network uses these differently, and it’s important to pay attention to which terms are trending the most for a particular topic.
Take advantage of websites that will help you to find these trending hashtags in order to save valuable time such as Hashtagify or RiteTag.
6 – Include links to all your social networks on your website
If you don’t display your social networks, your website visitors won’t be able to find your brand easily online. Include only the top performers where you are most active such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest and YouTube.
This is still important in today’s mobile and voice search world as social media continues to maintain a high level of influence for brands and social signals to the search engines.
7 – Conduct a poll or ask for opinions
The goal here is to deliberately facilitate as much activity on your social media feeds as possible. One easy and natural way to facilitate that discussion is to ask your audience questions, such as creating a user poll on either Facebook or Twitter.
Ask questions that people would want to share their opinions about. Give your audience a chance to brag about their ideas. Ask provocative questions, or questions that people would have strong opinions about.
8 – Mention other influencers and brands
When you tag or mention a leader in your industry, they’re more likely to see your message and respond back. They’re more likely to follow you, as well as more likely to recognize you in their social media feeds.
Sharing a quote or article from a big brand or influencer helps you stand out from all the chatter. It’s best to do this at the right moment and not too often so as not to create a ‘spam’ persona online.
9 – Establish meaningful relationships
Weeding out non-relevant fans and followers and forging relationships with those who are truly interested in your brand can help you in two ways. First, more people are going to be attracted to your content because it relates to what their needs and desires are. This means that more people will follow you, retweet you and get in conversations with you.
Second, if you engage in the social sphere with an influential person, you’re going to get a higher interest from your community because they view that person as a credible source.
10 – Share in various media formats
The internet isn’t the only place to build your brand. In fact, many of the top leaders in an industry don’t even pay much attention to the size of their communities. Instead, they’re focused on building real world influence.
Focus on expanding your reach through every other kind of medium possible both online and offline. Try to get on radio. Launch your own podcast. Do videos and build a YouTube channel. Speak in public.
Anything you do that raises your public profile will also raise your brand visibility.
These are ten ways to increase your social media influence. Some of these tactics focus on deliberately increasing community engagement, while others focus on actually expanding your reach. Both methods will help give your online presence the boost that you need in order to effectively reach your target market.
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