10 Ways To Break Away From The Social Herd

Social Media is showing no signs of slowing down and as the social landscape continues to change, so will the way your business is found. Being successful on social media means content that is intriguing, educating and plain beautiful. You have to be able to separate yourself from the herd. Knowing how to stay ahead of the trends and being agile enough to catch changes early is crucial to a successful social campaign.

With that being said, here’s 10 ways you can break away from the social herd and brand yourself, your product or your business differently.

1. First, Just be you.

Whatever that means for you and your business. Being authentic is one of the most important aspects of a social campaign. You need to show your potential customers and fans that what you have going on is what they need to be a part of. Snapchat, Facebook Live and Instagram Video (Even Vine) have made that easier than ever. Content doesn’t have to be molded in gold anymore, it can be rough, edgy and real.

2: Go Local

If you’ve adapted to the ghost (Snapchat), you may or may not know about the geofilters. (Learn More Here) 
A user can create and submit geofilters for their business at a cost of course. If you’re an artist or designer, you’re in luck as Snapchat says, being encouraged to create geofilters for their community, university or town.

3: Be A Trending Topic

Trending hashtags on Instagram, Twitter and even Facebook are still popular, meaning users are still actively engaging with trending topics. Create and curate content based on trends once a day to reach more people in different demographics. 

4: Be Knowledgeable

Make sure that the content you post, whether it’s created, curated or simply shared always has a purpose. Encourage engagement by fulfilling a need or answering a questions. Knowing what your audience wants to see in their social feed can help determine the content you need to be sharing.

5: Be A Problem Solver

In business, usually customers come to you for solutions to their problems. Whether that problem is a pain or a need, there is a solution to that problem. That solution may be your product, service or just plain education as people need your expertise in your respected industry. Create content that makes it easier for your audience to find solutions to their problems.

6. Social Media is Customer Service

Being active and engaging on social media is just like customer service. You want your consumers, fans and users to be happy right? Make sure they are by actively answering questions, commenting on issues and just contributing on a personal level. This can work for any kind of business. For example, the supermarket Publix is avid about customer service on social media with surveys, sharing in-store fliers and just being in constant connection with consumers.

7. Show off your users/fans or customers

Your customers show you love by supporting your business and buying your products, why not show them love back? Sharing your customer’s user created content is easy and an effective way to boost engagement. It also puts you in direct contact with consumers, why not take the time to review their thoughts on your business thus far.

8. Be on time

As social platforms continue to grow and user number continue to climb, the optimal times to post have changed, drastically. With so much competition on Facebook, it’s difficult for your posts to reach users at peak posting times. Try scheduling your posts at different time frames throughout the day and night. Give 3:00pm a try and then 3:00am to test reach first and evaluate from there. Latest study on optimal posting times shows that with increasing paid social ads, timing of content is more important than ever, all of which is audience based.

9. Be vigilant about your schedule

Make sure that when you find your optimum posting times for your audience you are adamant about getting a schedule for your posts written down and stick to that schedule. Even if you are posting once a day or two times every three days, it is crucial that you keep a consistent schedule. You want to be able to have your audience anticipate your future content.

10. Don’t be afraid to change

If your social strategy isn’t yielding the results you believe it should, don’t be afraid to change it up. Some ways you can mix it up is finding new uses for published content, such as infographics or bundling blog posts into an ebook. You can consider other platforms or go back to creating personas for your audience. Double down on what sticks, eliminate everything else.