Image courtesy of bplanet at FreeDigitalPhotos.net
In order to create a strong social media presence, you need to be consistently active on your networks. That being said, if you are looking to create online influence, you need to share good quality content that is relevant to your niche about 80{a0065375a7e2d1c093abc1aba7894b1ad713a40df7f413d8a34d916c8e570350} of the time- and to share content that is simply engaging about 20{a0065375a7e2d1c093abc1aba7894b1ad713a40df7f413d8a34d916c8e570350} of the time. If you are only sharing content that is relevant to your niche, others may see you as insincere, cold or closed off from forming any kind of relationship. If the only thing you share is irrelevant content, you will be seen as someone who is simply creating noise- or someone who is trying to game up a high Klout score. Others will not be impressed and will end up ignoring you. Therefore, you need to balance the type of content you share. If you are intending to share content that is simply engaging and not relevant to your niche, you need to do one powerful thing in order to ignite social media interaction! Get creative with how you share your content. Make it exciting, make it interesting and make it engaging. And by the way, you can tag your connections that like to be tagged to get their attention that you have shared something awesome.
I will give you some examples. For a while I have been sharing creative content on weekends. On Saturdays I share a picture of a dog on my networks, whether it is my dog or a picture of a dog that I find from a royalty free site to represent Dogurday– the replacement I like to use for Caturday. On Sundays I share pictures of sweets and desserts that I take at my local supermarket to represent Sweet Sunday– which is something I made up along the way. Let me tell you, it works because my connections are looking forward to my weekend posts.
Once in a while I have been sharing pictures of obscure places, and encouraging my connections to guess the locations. In fact, I did that today and the comments were pouring in. I shared a picture of what it appeared to be a small town at night, with “mountains” in the background. Some people guessed it was a small town in the Mediterranean, or in Germany- or were completely stumped. It was actually a picture of McMurdo Station in Antarctica- which is not anything close to what anyone had guessed, except for one person. I could tell that they had fun with the activity.
To summarize, if you are going to share content that may be irrelevant, make it stand out in a positive and interactive way. People do like that, and want to see it- and is a great tribe building tactic as well!
Very true one has to be consistently in the networks, because social media is meant to be social, connecting with other people. I like your weekends theme posts that you mentioned.
Thanks Siphosith, it definitely is a hit! Thanks for commenting.
i think of it like that annoying, one subject friend. After awhile you just stop listening. It’s the same for our readers. Changing things up once in a while keeps it fresh and interesting. It gives your readers a little insight into other aspects of your personality as well. Great advice.
Very true Heidi, your connections want a nice variety, even though they expect to learn something about your niche. Changing it up is essential. Thanks for commenting.
Hi Miriam,
To ignite social media interaction, we need to be social. After all, that what it is all about. Sharing pictures, Asking questions, putting up an inspirational quote. Anything that creates some conversation is what we all need to do.
Social media is a place where we can share our interests with others and of course we need to take some time to like and comment on others as well. It creates a bond sometimes with people.
As long as it comes from our heart, we can never go wrong. I love social media and am very active on it. I even made some friends…real friends that get together on Google+ Hangouts once in a while.
As long as we follow that good old 80/20 rule where we can be social 80% of the time and show our friends a product/service 20% of the time, we are OK.
-Donna
Donna you summed it up beautifully, thank you! Have a great day.
Excellent advice. Interesting thing – and this is just my experience – but when I cut back on sharing other people’s content and focused more on my own, all of a sudden not only did engagement increase but so did my number of followers. That was a good lesson for me.
Thanks for the comment Marquita. Yes, sharing your own content will definitely make you stand out more. However, it is nice to sometimes share the content that others put out. It will make them know you are paying attention to them as well. Balance is the key!
Hi Miriam ,
very interesting post and good tips ,
never thought of putting animal pictures
on the weekend or places.
Thank you
Erika
Thanks Erika, and yes anything creative really gets the interaction going!
Sound advice, Miriam.
Social Media interaction is an important way to develop your brand and build relationships online.
But you have to do it smartly and creatively. You give a clear path for us to follow here. The challenge, of course, is to implement it, and as you say, to implement it consistently.
Thanks David, consistency is extremely important as you said, and that is the only challenge a lot of people face when it comes to social media.
Hi Miriam,
Loved this post! This is definately a very powerful method to igniting social media interaction 🙂 Thanks for the awesome share!
Thanks Joan, very glad you found it helpful!
Thank you Miriam great post on Social Media. Great method to ignite interaction. It is unfortunate that some people still underestimate the power of Social Media. It is great place for personal brand and need to be done the right way. It is great that there are people like you out there spreading the knowledge for everyone to learn new ways.
Christine, unfortunately there are so many people out there who refuse to take social media seriously. Hopefully with awareness about the significance of it will have an affect on them.
Being sociable on social media is key. I like your idea for posting on the weekends. It makes you seem more human, and gives your readers something to look forward to.
Hi Miriam,
Great idea having different topics on different days, and your right about quality … I’ve noticed this on my own posts … people really do like “fun” posts and I think changing it up really makes a difference too …
Oh people do want to see fun posts, that is what entices them, and gets them to pay attention to you more!
Hello Miriam:
I agree that we need to entertain our followers at times. If you keep creating and posting the same old thing, they do get board and tune you out. It’s good to have a mix of things. I know for sure people love images!
I hadn’t really thought much about my posts on weekends, other than I tend to share more personal items at that time. I know everyone loves to ooooo and ahhhh over baby animals and children. 🙂
Thank you for sharing this great post and giving me some new ideas!
Deborah
Baby animals are awesome and will certainly get a lot of interaction going too 🙂 Thanks for the comment Deborah.
Loved your weekend posting strategies Miriam, and the guess the place! What great ideas for interaction.
I agree that you need to stay active, post decent content, and also bring some personality to our posts, with pics of our life… after all, it is to ourselves we are attracting followers and customers, not just our businesses 🙂
Great info!
Jacs
Thanks Jacs, and you must bring personality on social media because only focusing on your niche and business is not being social!
Love this Miriam, and McMurdo Station! I can believe that no one guessed. I find when I share family things I strike up a lot of conversation, especially when it’s got work mixed in. However, I will try and engage on my page more instead of hiding in groups!
Thanks for the comment Sarah, and yes, engaging on other people’s profiles and pages will certainly help you in so many ways. I hope this method gave you some good ideas on how to stand out in social media in a great way!
Share content that may be irrelevant, make it stand out in a positive and interactive way. Great ideas in your article. Thanks for the tips.
Thanks for the comment Kathryn!