Entering the world of social media can be both exciting and frightening. That’s because social media marketing is obviously a great opportunity for any business, but also is a tricky world when something simple or small can become a huge mistake (or a huge success, we hope). In that respect, to help you start your social presence from zero we’ve compiled some tips to creating a social media presence out of thin air. It takes work and patience, but there are things you can do to keep things moving along and moving forward.

#1. Social Media Actually Starts with Your Website

The first thing to remember is that content is king when talking about positioning or building a brand, and a good web design strategy allows you to have all the information regarding your business easily displayed, customer friendly, and fresh (with original content posted periodically). It is also important to link this website with any social network your enterprise has so your social media strategy can be directed exactly where you want. Think social buttons on your website on the top of the homepage.

#2. Keep Your Content Updated, Even with No Followers

Just as you would on your website, all your social networks must be updated (for social, it should be at least daily) with original content adapted to the format of each social network. In other words, a twitter post shouldn’t be the same as a Facebook post. You must remember to select only the social networks that fit your business best. More importantly, get started only with the ones you can actually maintain because an inactive social network can be damaging rather than profitable. 

#3. Build an Online Personality

To be connected and build an online personality on social media, interacting with your followers is essential. The base of any social media marketing is how people react to it and if they interact with your posts. This is why it is important that your audience feels like you’re one of their friends and they can relate to the things you post beyond just buying your product or visiting your business. Insight and engagement are the keys for positioning your networks since they all work accumulating interactions, so the more your public likes, comments, and post-shares, the more noticeable you will be online. Taking advantage of memes, movies, personalities, etc. is a perfect way to generate feedback.

#4. Use Social Promotion Offers

Even if you’re starting your business and your budget is tight, social networks offer very economic marketing plans to boost the presence your posts have among your followers. In that matter, by paying cents, you can quickly build a database of followers that are segmented and selected for being especially related to your product. We must remember that Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and almost any social network uses algorithms to determine which content we would be more like to consume according to our previous and general interaction with other pages. You can think of it like SEO and PPC – organic traffic might be best, but paid traffic is what you need for quick results to help you gather data, figure out your next move, and gain a boost.

#5. Focus on Personality

Visuals are very important when it comes to social media, that’s why your image must be easily remembered and highly triggering. Taking the time and the money you need to design a great logo and slogan can be the difference between a random site with great content and a quality brand. It’s crucial that your followers can remember who you are and each time they see those hilarious memes you post, they can relate the feeling they get with your business. In other words, when thinking about your overall brand, social media should be a factor. 

#6. Utilize Popular Hashtags

Design the right #hashtag. If your slogan is the representation of your personality, then your hashtag is the online equivalent to your slogan. Designing a hashtag that is friendly, funny, or sticky can be determined on the success of your campaign since this is the best way to find your products or services when you’re still not very well positioned in the media.

More importantly, look at some of the popular hashtags out there in your industry. Oftentimes people will see your post with the hashtag and not even look to see how many followers you have. Instead, you’ll get the follow, and that’s how it starts! 

#7. Create an Email Marketing Campaign

If you have a database but still not too many followers, creating an email marketing campaign can be very useful to attract new customers and followers. One tool suggestion for your email marketing campaign is Aritic Pinpoint, it will help you Automate all your campaigns based on customer behavior.

Though it has to be very clever and well designed, once you’ve studied your market and are sure of the content you’re going to email, this is a great way to attract new audiences and interest them in what you’re offering, so they will come to your networks instead of you adding them.

  • Analytics: the only way to measure that all these tips are working, is with good analytics tools. These tools register every interaction, reach, and response people have with your posts, campaigns, emails, etc. All you have to do is link and connect your networks to the tool, and automatically, any like, comment, view, even the time people spend on your website will be displayed in graphics that can be analyzed to determine which the most useful strategies are and which ones not so much. Learn more here. 

The Takeaway

One of the most common mistakes people make when trying to build a social media presence from zero is being impatient and believing that a whole new brand and online personality can be built in a month, and when it doesn’t happen, they abandon the project. You have to remember that positioning your brand is a process, and it will take as much time as it would in the offline market. Just keep focus and eventually, you will grow in social media.

Amanda DiSilvestro is the Editor in chief for Plan, Write, GO. She has been writing about all things digital marketing, both as a ghost writer, guest writer, and blog manager, for over 10 years. Check out her blogging services to learn more!