I could talk all day about hints and tips and tricks and hacks to shine online. But most of us haven’t got all day to spend on our social media content, so I’ve narrowed down my ‘7 Be’s’ to help you prioritise. These will help you shine online and turn those posts into pounds.

Be yourself!

Everyone else is taken and this way you will attract like-minded followers and potential customers. Don’t over share on the personal stuff but telling your story or giving a few fun facts about yourself makes you more relatable. Make sure you show your face from time to time, it really helps raise your profile and grow you brand – be visible.

Be consistent on social media

This is so important it’s actually two be’s!

• Choose a colour palette, fonts, tone of voice (if you are being your authentic self that last one should come very easily.) Have the same profile image across all digital platforms, being consistent makes you distinctive. I use a sunflower across most of my posts because it’s significant to me and my business – I’ll help you stand tall and shine above the rest – followers now associate me with sunflowers and regularly tag me in sunflower related posts. Make sure it’s something you like as you should really stick with it and avoid changing your branding too often.
• Make quality posts consistently! Be active! Don’t post 10 times one day and then don’t bother again for a month and because you are a bit quiet and have some spare time knock out another 10 posts and ignore it for the rest of the month. There’s plenty of planning tools out there to help you plan, we’ll come to that later. I have a friend who is an influencer with close to 50,000 followers – she has posted good, consistent and quality content for over four years, hardly missing a day – there’s no such thing as a quick win.

Be nice

Not just in the sense of keeping negativity to a minimum. Don’t put together great social media content and then sit back and wait for people to start commenting – it is Social Media after all, not self media. Identify 10 accounts each day and comment on their Instagram posts, five on Facebook and five on LinkedIn, don’t get me started on Twitter, it works for very specific niches but it’s the least useful of the big four in my experience. These could be accounts that do something similar to you, you could perhaps get a chance to collaborate or learn something new, a local business, something that interests you…I interact a lot with my favourite coffee shop, what do I get out of it – nothing although they do often share my posts but they do have the best coffee and Wi-Fi in my local area so its nice to deservedly big them up and engage.

Be a Storyteller

Human beings are predisposed to enjoy stories. Think of Social Media Content as a campfire, people sitting round and telling their stories – the most interesting ones get passed on and shared or even better people want to come and sit at your campfire and listen, your fire burns brighter. Make your stories worth hearing, your content worth sharing and authentic, don’t copy others. While we are on Stories – I love Instagram and Facebook Stories – use your highlights to showcase yourself at the top of that all important feed. Remember – in very simple terms that your grid/feed is to grow your following and your Stories are to keep your existing followers interested. That’s in very basic terms but it helps you decided where to broadcast which content.

Be insightful

Use your insights, research your hashtags, then do it some more. I have four honed sets of hashtags I keep copy and pasted in my phone on every device I own, I research and edit them weekly. Your insights will tell you when your audience is looking and who they are – remember that, you are being yourself, but you are writing to attract your audience and ideal client. Don’t guess which hashtags work, don’t guess which posts work and which ones don’t there’s so much information available to you, use it! I now rarely post at weekends on Instagram as I get very little engagement – that saves me time and energy and gives me precious weekend time without engaging with followers.

Be organised with your content

Plan, plan and plan some more. I have weird and wonderful mix of planning tools, I’m yet to find one I like for all platforms. Hootsuite is a good all rounder and my favourite for LinkedIn and Twitter. Planoly is the absolute bee’s knees for Instagram, it makes me so happy and there’s a free version which has most of the decent features, if you can cope with the adverts. I like to use Facebook’s own scheduling tools to plan my Facebook posts, I like them a lot – you can now post to Instagram too but as much as I’ll tell you all to stay with the trends, I’m a creature of habit when it comes to planning. I also have a magical overarching Google document with all my planned posts in one place. I’m currently involved in over 35 accounts excluding my own so it’s unlikely you’ll have that many to contend with but it’s a great idea to have seasonal campaigns and prompts at the ready.

I hope you find this useful. Do let us know if you need any further help or guidance.

Clare’s bio

I’ve spent over 17 years’ in digital marketing, making me a true digital marketing expert – I’m even award-winning! I’ve worked with a variety of large and small businesses on end-to-end digital marketing campaigns. I have a Swiss Army Knife full of digital marketing tools and I know how to expertly use each and every one. Crafting a bespoke approach for each business I work with, using the right tools at the right time to maximise presence, growth and getting the most out of every budget.

I specialise in producing engaging & creative content for all forms of social and digital media, to help businesses shine bright and gain exposure to the right customers.

I have worked on projects for household names such as Boots, Travelodge and First Group PLC, I can bring my big brand experience to your business whatever the size.

Sunshine Digital Homepage