Unlocking Your Social Media Potential

By Claire Winter.

As a content creator and a business alike, your social media presence is a more important tool than ever. In a world where people are continually connected, you can't afford to not represent and sell your brand on social media platforms. It can, however, be overwhelming to get started! To shed the feeling of having too much to do and to get the most benefit out of social media, take the following tips on board when you are creating content:

Know Your Brand Essentials

Before you start spreading the word about your work and business on social media, it is worth ensuring that you are confident in your foundations. Have a mission statement you believe in. Find the tone of voice that works for your audience and client base. Be aware of the demographic you're actively targeting. Essentially, don't go in blind. A head-first approach is tempting, especially with social media platforms readily available. You will likely have these elements figured out to some degree already when you start your business, but taking time to work on this will help to ensure that your voice is clear and accessible when you begin your social media journey.

Three Stages of Production

When making content, try to follow the steps of production, which are often used in creative mediums; Pre-Production -> Production -> Post-Production. In essence, this translates to Planning, Creation, and Editing, respectively. It can be tempting to write your social media content intuitively and off the cuff, much like you would on your personal accounts or in a journal. Even though this approach may lead to decent, relatable results here and there, when it comes to creating content to represent your business through social media, a more structured approach is likely to be beneficial. After all, your business' reputation is on the line. Knowing your content pillars and the core content you want to create is a great place to start. You can then begin with your pre-production, planning out the aim, structure, and critical points of your intended social posts. Move on to production, where you fully draft and write out the posts. Finally, finish with a careful Post-production, where you create and check the posts. Whether you are writing a blog, filming a video, or posting a picture. Batching content like reels, blogs, or Instagram posts will save you time in the long run.

Tone of Voice

Knowing your voice and understanding what speaks to your audience is essential. Naturally, you also want to expand your audience and extend your reach. When it comes to social media, your presence needs to have fluidity and consistency to succeed in that task effectively. Still, it is worth keeping in mind that different platforms will require adjustments to the tone of voice you utilise. Minor adjustments to your content output should allow this. Visual platforms like Instagram and TikTok are likely to benefit from a more human, charismatic approach to your content.
In contrast, professional platforms like LinkedIn often need a different approach depending on your business. However, many business owners successfully share their unique personalities and views across all their platforms, but they will adapt and change the content depending on the forum. Essentially, it's just like understanding the difference between how you would speak to your friends compared to how you would address your boss. Different tones and degrees of formality will work for different audiences. You are likely to have an intuition to adjust your style depending on who you are speaking to anyway. By considering your audiences on all the different platforms you use, you will be giving yourself the best chance to gain the most from your social media posts across the board.

Less is More

Too much text or inaccessible language can put off your potential audience and client base. It can be tempting to create long posts or complicated content. This, however, can be highly overwhelming to your audience. Remember to make your social content eye-catching and exciting to avoid people swiping past your efforts and getting left behind. A concise, to-the-point post asking a question is much more likely to inspire engagement and capture the attention of your audience and customers.

Visuals Complement Your Content

The visuals you employ across your social media are just as important as the information you are providing. A robust and considered approach to how you present your business on social media could be the key to getting through to a broader audience. Prepare an aesthetic style and logos to make your presence consistent across platforms. Use images and stand-out graphics in your posts. You may want to outsource the work to acquire professionally made assets and allow your focus to remain on the business and writing. Using a freelance graphic designer, VAs, or having a full-time marketing assistant are all options worth considering.

Social media can be a powerful tool to grow an audience. Once you find a platform that you enjoy, stick to doing that one well first. You can add more social platforms to your content marketing plan when your business and team grow. Remember, you don't own your social channels (the platform does), so focussing on email list growth and SEO should also be part of your strategy. Think about how you can use social posts to drive traffic back to your website and grow your email list.

Claire Winter is a trainer, coach and host of the Cracking Content podcast. She is passionate about helping coaches and creative entrepreneurs to amplify their expertise through storytelling, content and PR so that they can get more sales and make a bigger impact.

Claire uses a blended coaching and mentoring approach to ignite her client's creativity so they can share their authentic voice and story. She is a trained NCTJ journalist and started her career at ITN in radio and television. She also runs a Facebook community called Cracking Content where she shares writing, content and PR TIPs. You can read more about Claire and her work here.