1. What can you do for your audience?
Your profile is your opportunity to show the world who you are, but it is also your opportunity to inform your audience. There are four different types of content you can post that add value to your followers.
Educate: share tips/ideas that give your follower/client a quick win
News/trends: share breaking news e.g. a new app/feature/tool. Or share your opinion on a topical issue
Inspire: share an inspiring story about your own or a client’s success
Community: ask a question that will help you get to know your audience better
In order to build an audience you need to engage your audience and make them want to come back. Think about the people who’s profiles you constantly check. Outside of your closest friends and family, it is probably someone who constantly shows up on social media to offer their unique perspective to the world. This is how influencers become popular. They offer insight to their followers and if the followers like what they hear and find the information useful they will come back to the account; and might even share the account with their friends and followers.
2. Ask questions
Social media platforms are a great place to learn more about the people following you, what they want to see more of, and their recommendations for you. Stories are a great place for polls. It gives your followers the opportunity to interact with your profile without needing to put a lot of effort into the interactions. This same concept can be applied to captioning images. As we head into Thanksgiving think about posting one of your favorite traditions. You can still caption it something fun related to the activity but, after add to your caption, “What is your favorite Thanksgiving tradition?” The addition of a question leaves the door open for your followers to interact with you and naturally prompts them to answer your question.
3. Be authentic
Today’s society has a cancel culture. If you are not being authentic on social media your followers will be able to tell. Nobody wants advice from someone they don’t trust. Trust is part of the foundation of social media. Posting content you don’t believe in or that is not true is how you loose your audience’s trust. And similar to the real world, once trust is lost, it is difficult to regain.