5 Easy Ways to Win with Social Media

By Jill Kurtz, Owner, Kurtz Digital StrategyYou are on social media – great! Whether you are new communicating and marketing on social or a seasoned pro, here are five great ways to boost the engagement you have with your online social connections.1. Optimize your profile content.Each social platform allows you to create a profile. Make sure you take advantage and complete every field that is relevant to you.Begin with a great profile photo. Your photo should communicate visually who you are and what you are about.Also pay careful attention to the bio section. Make it as consistent as possible across social channels. Ensure that your branding is always up to date on every social platform where you have an account. Make sure your bio content positions you and your brand well and is consistent with all your offline and online efforts.2. Pay attention to your posts.Make sure that you post regularly about your most important topics and keywords.Consistency is great, but be sure you can think of new ways to share with your followers.Reshare popular and engaging content regularly. If only share your most popular content once, you could be missing out on clicks and engagement.3. Know your goals and measure them.What do you want to accomplish with social media. More sales? More connections to potential customers? A following that will allow you to share important information? Increase routine interactions with customers or members?Take time to define your social media goal(s) in writing. Then decide what metrics will let you know if you are moving toward that goal. Most social platforms have native analytics that make it easy to see your impact.4. Vary days and times for posts.Play with different posting times and schedules. Even if you have researched this in the past, online patterns change over time.You can measure how different schedules affect your engagement by looking at metrics like sharing, clicks, likes, and new followers.5. Run a chat.You can run a chat on Twitter or Facebook to create real-time engagement. Facebook is currently prioritizing live video in the news feed, which means if you want to stand out, a Live broadcast could give you a great opportunity to do so.I recently posted about the steps to create a Twitter chat.To start a live video broadcast on Facebook, tap on Update Status and then select the Live Video icon. If you’d like, you can write a quick description and choose the audience that you want to share with before going live.During your broadcast, you’ll see the number of viewers, the names of friends who are tuning in and a real-time stream of comments. Broadcasts can be up to 30 minutes. When you end your broadcast, it will be saved on your timeline like any other video.[author]About the Author: Jill Kurtz founded Kurtz Digital Strategy to help clients see the communication potential of the newest trends and technologies. She is an expert at website strategy and redesign, social media planning, and developing exceptional content.[/author]