If you are reading this post, chances are you might be on the wrong platform. Perhaps this content isn’t really for you. Most of us opened accounts on almost all social media platforms during the rave of social media, and a lot of us are still very active on all platforms. Before I teach you exactly on the right way to use social media, I will first inform you that time is actually money or most times proportional to money. So if you spend 5 minutes reading this article and it doesn’t in any way add value to you now or in the future, chances are, you have wasted five minutes of your time.
Here’s the point, social media platform were built with different goals in mind, different target audiences and even have different algorithms. This post concerns you because it can help either you as a personal brand or your business. I have had to give free advice to people on the right way to use social media and either get value from it, or make money from it. One of the persons whom I gave tips on how to benefit from social media was a photographer; he had very few clients and also had less engagements. These were the tips I gave him: –
What Exactly is Your Goal for Using Social Media?
I bet a lot of young folks just open a social media account with no specific goal. If you find yourself in such shoes, then you need to have it thought out and here’s a simple way to easily know why you should be on a social media platform: Two different people can strive to become world class engineers for different reasons. One can choose to be a world class engineer with the intention of making millions of dollars while the second wants to be a world class engineer with the intention of saving the world through engineering.
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Now, while each individually aims to be a world class engineer, they will have different approaches to achieve those. To help you know exactly what to do on social media, I will list out some of the benefits of social media:
- To build connection
- To create a niche and build influence
- To make money
- To spread ideas
- To stay happy
- To be updated
- To get a job
There are lots of other benefits of social media; however, most of these few points have covered a wide range of what we have in our subconscious when creating social media account even though some folks cannot really pinpoint what exactly is their goal for using social media. Now that you have identified what exactly you want to do on social media, the next thing is to know the approach to take in achieving these.
Know Which Social Media Platform Works for Your Skill and Type
Pay attention! there’s this feeling that we all can build influence on Facebook as well as Instagram almost immediately. While it’s true that you can build influence on Facebook, you need to know if Facebook is the best platform to build on. If you are a photographer, your contents are mostly photos and videos, then Instagram should be where you build your personality or brand.
I will like to point it out to you that having lots of engagement on your contents will not translate to conversion if you are not on the right platform.
I used to write some very good contents on business strategy and all on Facebook. However, I discovered that I got no clients despite the fact that lots of people liked my posts. Two things were wrong. The first was that I did not pay attention to the platform I used. Was Facebook the right platform to use? Well, yes! Although I didn’t consider that. The second mistake I made was that I thought my content was for everyone because they liked my posts. Not until I decided to seek for communities that were related to what I was into.
Be Consistent
All social media platforms have their different algorithms. However, there’s a similar algorithm which is that the more you have your contents out, the more visibility you get. It might not be about posting to your wall, it might be about commenting strategically on some specific posts to get attention. A lot of people do not know the trick of strategic commenting and it is a very good way to get more visibility, connections and attention.
Here’s how it works. If you have figured out which platform works best for you; LinkedIn for professionals, Instagram for photos and video contents, Twitter for trends and updates, etc, you can execute your plan.. If you are just starting, then you need to be active on niches you belong to give reasonable comments to posts on handles or pages that have lots of followers or audience. This works best if you are very vast in insights in such a niche.
If you can put all these into consideration, you will be able to achieve a lot on social media as opposed to wasting time on social media.