The influential power of social media has been realized, and many organizations are representing their brands across platforms. In the highly competitive social sprawl, organizations too often jump onto platforms without a full knowledge of why a social presence is important. As a result, they struggle to find their desired audience. Before making an account, it’s important for organizations to ensure their presence on social media is worthwhile — it should effectively represent their brand and directly correlate to positive growth. Below are five tips to consider when positioning your brand as a thought leader across your social platforms.
Set Appropriate Goals
The goal in any platform may be to improve brand awareness, but it can be difficult to measure in the abstract. It’s integral in operating a social media account that analytics-based goals are clear from the outset. Consider your desired goal — from growing a follower base and driving website clicks to maintaining high engagement rates and more. These numbers should directly tie back to business growth through analytics, which provide the opportunity to evaluate whether or not content is successful and adjust a content strategy accordingly. Using measurable goals promotes progression and growth, both for the social media profile and the brand it represents.
Identify Your Audience
Without an audience, even the best social content can’t truly serve its purpose. It’s key to recognize the target audience of your social profile prior to creating the account. The best way to discover where an audience lives is through research, including identifying keywords on various platforms and finding where individuals engage with content related to your organization’s industry.
Make the Table Bigger
Find where industry influencers have the largest following of engaged individuals and explore how your brand can be part of that community. Sometimes this is as simple as joining and then listening or posing questions. Additionally, it’s worth noting that committing to growth on a platform with the largest audience can help ensure the organization’s reach and influence won’t be limited. Another important way to engage as a thought leader is to widen the discussion by ensuring multiple perspectives and viewpoints are represented. Bring in new and different voices and engage discussion on emerging topics in transformation that are affecting your community.
Elevate Your Experts
Consider the many ways you can elevate the particular expertise of your organization. While brand and marketing may have the responsibility for organizing and amplifying messaging, there are experts across organizations who know quite a bit about the unique product or service you offer – and most likely have specific expertise on the transformation happening within your industry. By interviewing them and championing their unique insights, you help to realize the full potential of your organization.
Engage by Adding Value
Content should be tailored to add specific value to the audiences with whom you are connecting. Consider presenting actionable insights, how-to tips, or interviews with experts that can shed light on important areas of concern for your audience. This type of content isn’t just interesting – it’s actively helpful in advancing the unique goals of your community. If you can establish your branded content as regularly adding value, audiences will regularly seek it out.
If you’re interested in taking additional steps, check out Mindsailing’s social media kick-start guide to further advance your social media strategy.
Looking to craft a customized social media presence for your organization? Get in touch.