One of the biggest challenges when it comes to social media is getting more than your mum or enthusiastic grandparents to pay attention to what you're doing.
Natalie Sutton, audience development manager for Fairfax participated in this weeks forum for online journalism. So I took the opportunity to ask her about building and maintaining a social media following.
According to Natalie, a few of the best ways to build a social media following is consistency, attention to detail (using the right hashtags, tagging posts), compelling content and hard work.
These areas may seem obvious when spelled out in front of you but can easily be overlooked when operating over multiple social media platforms. Although you may have 200 Instagram followers and 300 Facebook likes, all your effort and content creation is rendered useless if there's no engagement.
A tool I believe has become most useful is the use of hashtags. Hashtags can be easily searched and allow for interested users to connect with you. For example, you've been interested in changing your hairstyle so you flick onto Instagram, search the hashtag "haircolour" and find a style you want. The benefit to those wanting to grow their following and user engagement, not just within a user liking their photo but then following the account because they enjoy the content and booking an appointment with the salon.
These areas may seem obvious when spelled out in front of you but can easily be overlooked when operating over multiple social media platforms. Although you may have 200 Instagram followers and 300 Facebook likes, all your effort and content creation is rendered useless if there's no engagement.
A tool I believe has become most useful is the use of hashtags. Hashtags can be easily searched and allow for interested users to connect with you. For example, you've been interested in changing your hairstyle so you flick onto Instagram, search the hashtag "haircolour" and find a style you want. The benefit to those wanting to grow their following and user engagement, not just within a user liking their photo but then following the account because they enjoy the content and booking an appointment with the salon.
Analytics are also a major factor when it comes to social media. A Facebook page may have 2,000 likes but are people reading the content and clicking on stories? Following the right metrics and always go back to the original objective of your social strategy (driving traffic, engagement, subscriptions etc).
Social media is a struggle to navigate without understanding the environment and how to interact with followers.
Here's an interesting video on the different types of social media content and how to engage with followers which is key to the maintenance of an online presence.
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