There’s plenty of information out there on how to get started on social media and create content, but when a tweet goes out into an already-noisy cyberspace, does anyone hear it?
Meanwhile, Facebook has revamped its algorithms to give preference to paid promotional posts. You’re on social media and you’re savvy enough, but how do you make sure your content is reaching people?
Evidence suggests that the paid promotional posts do work if they are crafted in such a way to grab customer attention. Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn all offer this opportunity.
On LinkedIn, it is particularly important to make the post a substantial one; LinkedIn users are busy and looking for relevant content, and your post can get lost amid a sea of sponsored posts if it is not a strong one.
Images, high-value content and narrowing your audience to the most relevant groups are all ways to make your promotional posts even more effective.
However, before you shell out money for those promotional posts, you can build anticipation for and expectation of your most significant posts. For example, tweets and other teasers can let followers know that something big is coming.
In addition to promoting yourself, you can make it easy for others to promote you. Be sure that your site has buttons so users can share your information on Twitter, Google Plus, Facebook and other social networking sites.
You can also use contests and promotions to encourage shares and re-tweets. Your website and share buttons should be optimized for mobile viewing as well.
Social media is about more than just sharing your own information. It’s also about building relationships and promoting others. If the only posts you’re sharing on social media are about your own business, you may find yourself in an echo chamber.
People are more likely to pay attention to, share and amplify your content if they feel as though there is a person behind the account rather than simply someone churning out content links. Developing a social media personality and interacting with others is key. This will also lead to the unprompted sharing by others of more of your posts.
Time of day is important. Social media is an ephemeral medium, and posts scroll away and can be lost quickly. Try to determine when more of your followers are online, and time your posts accordingly. Depending on your target audience, weekends and evenings are usually poor times to roll out new information.
One of the best ways to amplify your content is by making sure that content is informative, relevant and helps someone with a problem or answers their question. You may use all of the methods above, but if the information you are sharing is not of use to your audience, it will be ignored.
With each piece of content, ask yourself who it is aimed at and how it will help them. If the answer to either or both is “I don’t know,” go back and retool your content and your plan.
As social media becomes more crowded, getting noticed may also become more difficult. However, those crowds also means a larger audience, and learning how to get your content in front of the maximum number of people will pay dividends if you persevere.
This article first appeared on Socialnomics.net. Read the Socialnomics blog here
