Everyone is talking about the Influencer trend on Social Media, infact these few years have seen a rapid rise in how we view Social Media! Now every picture people post is a creative zing between righteousness and wanting to be a Diva. Well, nothing wrong in that until things go a little too vain, a little too political, or a little too competitive.
Whether you are an individual or a brand just starting out in the market, the following article is going to take you through the Do’s and Don’ts, and everything that’s stopping you from being an influencer Social Media!
The Dos:
1. Pause before you post
Whether you post individually or for a company, what you post and what it means can really affect your image. There’s nothing wrong in having contrary views on subjects like religion, politics or gender issues, as long as you come from a responsible and aware school of thought. Think before you post on any of these and how it’s going to come across to your viewers.
2. Engage your followers
It’s very difficult to make people stop and take note, these days. With the ever growing impatience, everything needs to click instantly or people just move on. Let your readers or viewers see your personality while you build a rapport with them and make it engaging, insightful, and unique.
3. Be YOU
No matter what insecurities you might have, build around them. Most of the crowd is looking for someone who’s just like them and they can relate themselves with. A good way is to add bloopers, adding behind the scenes videos or taking photos of your team at special events and activities. People who follow you love to see what actually goes on.
4. Set realistic expectations
If you are thinking everything will happen in a jiffy, think again! Social Media alone won’t help you create a base. Yes, it can help to build your brand reputation, generate awareness and increase visibility, but you will have to work it out to come across as someone people can continue to follow or someone who has something to give in terms of wisdom they can take home, whichever area it comes in. h
5. Write for them/ Speak for them
Whatever the medium, make sure you focus your content on what will help your audience and make it come across in a way that they will understand it. Simplifying your content doesn’t mean you have to dumb it down, but you should avoid overly complicated wording and sentence structure.
6. Personalize your outreach
When collaborating, come up with tailor-made content instead of just getting away with it, which can come across as a half-hearted attempt. Targeted advertising and retargeting campaigns on social media to cater to the demand for individualized content and offers is a great way to start. You should also watch out for global social media trends to avoid being in a rut and just following the crowd.
The Don’ts:
1. Don’t engage with negative influences online
Well, some people deserve to hear it back, but at times it’s just a lost battle. Engaging with people who don’t deserve your time or energy is such a waste. Put together your creative energy into building your brand further.
2. Don’t try to be everywhere and do everything
Pick a niche and stick to it! This also includes having multiple channels via different social media platforms. By trying to maintain too many channels, you’ll become overwhelmed and dilute your effectiveness on those that matter most. Stay active only on the accounts that give you the best return on your time and effort. A niche will help you cater better and stay focused too.
3. Proofreading is the key
This should be rule number one. No matter how perfect you are at Grammar, if you publish posts with careless mistakes, it will reflect poorly on your brand. Before making posts live, review, recheck and proof read. When going online, make sure you have a script ready and sticking to it. It will help you stay clear of maximum errors.
4. Don’t ignore your followers’ questions, comments and messages
Ignoring your audience is the fast track to creating hard feelings, missing opportunities and damaging your brand. Keep tabs on activity on your social media accounts and respond promptly to your followers. Word of mouth also really helps, you never know which follower is actually bringing you tonnes of others.
5. Don’t use AI as a substitute for human interaction
Nothing can replace one-to-one communication on social media,
Marketing automation will save you time but you might never be able to develop a relationship with your followers. Being genuinely engaged is the only way to be alive on the block for a far longer time.
6. Don’t make your competition your everything
Sure, being competitive in a healthy way is great, but you can go terribly off track if you keep watching your competition all the time! It will cause a hindrance in developing your business as an individual or a company. Nurture your brand’s unique strengths and capabilities rather than trying to be a carbon copy of someone else.
While this comes to an end, no one can really tell you what to do when it comes to striking the right chord. However, these tips will definitely help you stay out of trouble and develop an efficient long term association with brands you choose to work with and followers you choose to keep.