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Has this lockdown and life halt bought you to follow your dreams of being a digital entrepreneur? Do you finally want to pause and take a step forward in your journey to follow your passion of becoming a social media influencer? Do you want to know the ultimate hacks to grow your engagement with your core audience?
If yes, here are a few tips I picked up during my research to build a successful social media strategy from scratch, that any I believe any "solopreneur" MUST follow:
1. Understand the algorithm
Read below to get the secret sauce to cracking the algorithm
Make relevant content for your niche market. Your objective should be to increase the time spent on your profiles by multiple unique accounts.
a) You must have noticed a surge in “video” content in recent times, by all major companies. Why, you ask? Because they can see clear results from posting consistent video content. 1-2 mins video means a person scrolling through their homepage will pause and spend that much time on your content. Hence it gives a sense to “bad boy algorithms” that it is a hot piece and is worth showing to more people in order to keep them in the platform for longer
b) Another hack to increase screen time is by writing longer captions. Gone are the days when “Good morning world” or “Outfit of the Day” had a positive impact on your social media game.
Write long, engaging, simple captions. You don’t have to throw in a bunch of quotes or stats or other “Smart stuff”. Just tell us your story. Tell us why you think that photo is relevant to your “hot followers”. Once those customers get super engaged, it’ll be shown to your unknown or cold audience (non-followers) as well.
c) IGTV: Since IGTV is a new commodity for social marketers, directly competing with Youtube videos, you should consider being amongst the first adopters of it. Utilize this feature to gain more traction. You don’t have to do a Q&A session or a vlog. You could take a few relatable and interconnected questions and create a video around that. For example, if you’re a fashion influencer, you could talk about 5 ways to style a piece of clothing or accessories. If you’re a movie/book reviewer, talk about your favorite picks during this quarantine period.
(If you want me to write a blogpost with different topics for each niche, let me know in the comments below or just leave me a message)
d) Time spent on stories counts as well!
Use all the features available to you in stories. Utilize the polls, quizzes, questions, slide bar! A benefit of that is you’ll know who your relevant customers are and you can segment them as priority followers in your databases. Track their activities in your account and design post that they like, consume, and engage with.
2. Make your post irresistible.
a) Focus on one niche. So many bloggers get lost in the bubble of being all over the place that they forget the essence of why and for whom they exist in the first place. Initially, you should have a clear message for the 1 ideal customer whom you’re trying to create value for. That one marketing tactic that will speak to your target niche audience in a way that they can really relate to.
Also, when you have a clear understanding of your purpose, you’ll be able to get brand deals more easily. Due to the saturation of the “Instagram influencer” segment, brands are now directed towards partnering with highly relevant micro-influencers in their respective industries.
b) The next thing would be to have a “look”. Be consistent. I know you already know this. Everyone talks about it. But I cannot express enough how important it is to be consistent and have an eye-pleasing aesthetic. Look at what your closely-knit competitors are doing. What's the most “buzz-worthy” post? Make sure you’re not doing a 3-week-old challenge. That’ll mug off some of your followers. Some tools I personally use are VSCO (https://vsco.co/) for editing and Planoly (https://www.planoly.com/) to schedule automatic uploads.
3. Want to know to be ahead of your competitors?
a) Build a meaningful relationship with your followers. They aren’t your followers, they are your friends. The type of friends who come to you for advice because you’re the go-to person for this particular thing, be it about love, travel, technologies, studying abroad, photography, editing. Whatever it is.
So, try to create valuable captions along with a high-quality image/video or other graphic.
For example, you can research on the most asked questions on Reddit (https://www.reddit.com/) or Quora (https://www.quora.com/) in your domain and give your opinions on it.
I’ve listed a few openers to help you get started:
(i) How to …… (for travel: how to pack for a cold vacation trip)
(ii) 3 ways I/to ….. (for photography: 3 ways I edit my Instagram post)
(iii) Guide to …. (For relationship: Guide to having a fun couples time during quarantine)
(iv) 5 best …. (For food: 5 best Italian restaurants)
Make sure you have a call-to-action at the end of a few of your posts. Ask them a question. Ask them to share their opinion. Ask them to rate your content. And when they do, be sure to reply to them. It helps enhance the bond and fondness.
b) You’ve heard it a hundred times already. But please leverage on the hashtag game. It can bring you, followers, from so many different parts of the world. The best way to do it is in 3 parts.
1st, use 10 very generic, ultra-popular hashtags, between the range of 500k-millions
2nd, use appropriate hashtags between 200k to 500k. Hashtags that you see your competitors using.
3rd, use very specific and super-relevant hashtags with under 200k tags. The lower, the better. This should describe your product, your account, your business, and your target market. These are your super hashtags and can get you traction from your core prospects.
Don’t use the same hashtags for all the posts. Try different ones. You can keep a note in your phone to use per post. You can use hashtag generators tools like Hashtagify (https://hashtagify.me/), Seekmetrics (https://seekmetrics.com/) or Igramer (https://ingramer.com/tools/instagram-hashtag-generator/)
These are a few tips I have for you. I know a lot of people are just starting out in this field and I’d be more than happy to help anyone who needs it. It’s an extremely competitive market and to stand out, you need to follow certain guidelines that’ll help you be a household name in your area of interest.
Leave a comment or send me a message if you have any questions regarding social media marketing.
If you think I missed out on anything, let me know! I’d love to hear what’s working for you.
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