Likes, Shares & Comments

Six steps to a stronger social media presence

Having a strong social media presence can go a long way for your business. In this digital-first world, if you’re not keeping up with the trends, you’re falling behind. From live streams to 3D posts, there’s so much happening on social media all day—every day—that it can feel impossible to cut through the clutter. Here are a few ways to keep your content strong, steady, and consistently engaging.

• Get to know your toolbox
  When you log in to platforms like Facebook or Twitter, open up a new post and click around to find new features. Social media platforms are updating these tools all the time and the earlier you adopt them, the more likely you are to get eyeballs. Polls, for example, are a quick and easy way for readers to engage and for you to keep your impressions up.

• Good enough to share
  When you’re thinking about what to post, think about what adds value for your reader and what makes you seem credible. Consider content that adds so much value your readers would want to post it to their own pages. Sure, a picture of a cracked windshield might catch a couple impressions, but an infographic on what to do if your windshield cracks is valuable.

• A picture is worth a thousand words
  Words are powerful, and as a career writer, I wish they were enough! However, we can glean from analytics that images make a bigger impact on social media. Be sure that image posts make up the majority of your content, and if you want to share a valuable piece of copy, consider dropping that text onto a simple image background.

• Hop onto those hashtags
  Adding hashtags helps your discoverability, i.e., they attract folks that may otherwise not have found you. Do so tastefully, though. If the hashtag is too far out of reach, it could also come off as transparent and tacky. And don’t get too greedy—a few hashtags are great, but over five and you risk looking like you’re trying too hard.  

• Talk back
  When someone engages with you, do your best to engage back. This not only makes the user feel they were noticed, but it also raises your viewability in the social media feed.

• Watch what works, repeat
  You are the expert on what’s working for your pages. Keep track of how many likes, comments and shares you’re receiving on every post. (Most brand pages have behind-the-scenes tools to track measurement.) If you see that certain types of content are working for you, keep up the good work! 

Trish DiFranco

Senior writer and marketer for Progressive. When she’s not stuck to a screen, Trish enjoys getting lost in new cities, pining over her cat Gatsby, and the occasional yoga al fresco.