I recently had the opportunity to speak with students in a social media class at the University of Texas at Arlington about finding and engaging your audience using social media. The class was attentive (they live-tweeted! Check out #PREL3320) and asked some great questions about responding to negative posts, what to post, when to post, and they even had some good questions about internships/resumes.
Whether you’re still a student or a seasoned PR pro, we
could all use a little social media advice. Here are a few points I made to the
class.
Know your audience. Before you dive-in and adopt every social media tool out there, know who it is you’re trying to reach and adopt one or two platforms that your audience uses most. For example, B2B clients are likely to find their audience and influencers on LinkedIn and Google+, whereas B2C clients might find their audience on Facebook and Instagram.
Know your audience. Before you dive-in and adopt every social media tool out there, know who it is you’re trying to reach and adopt one or two platforms that your audience uses most. For example, B2B clients are likely to find their audience and influencers on LinkedIn and Google+, whereas B2C clients might find their audience on Facebook and Instagram.
Set a goal. When launching a client’s social media page, set clear goals and objectives before you make the page “live.” By having clear and measurable goals, you’ll know if you’re on the right track with your messaging and if you are effectively reaching your audience.
Use social media to tell your story. Whether you want to spotlight your corporate culture, recruit new employees, share product news and/or engage in thought leadership, social media can be a great channel to share your message. Just remember the social media “rule of thirds.” One-third of your content should focus on self-promotion, one-third should be spent commenting on trends/news/thought leadership and one-third should be personal interactions online and building your company’s brand.
Focus on what works best. Visual content is typically the most engaging, so if your audience isn’t resonating with text-heavy messaging or links to events/articles, consider reducing your frequency of those types of posts.
For more on what we discussed, check out the #PREL3320 hashtag on Twitter.
This post was contributed by Krystal Morris. @KrystalNMorris.
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