Today on the blog I’ve got Clare Clifford of Sunshine Digital Media sharing her “7 Be’s of Social Media Content”, her seven top tips to help you shine online and turn those posts into pounds.
Be yourself!
Everyone else is taken and this way you will attract like-minded followers and potential customers. Don’t over share on the personal stuff but telling your story or giving a few fun facts about yourself makes you more relatable. Make sure you show your face from time to time, it really helps raise your profile and grow your brand (see Maryanne’s great blog post all about this here).
Be consistent
This is twofold:
Choose a colour palette, fonts, tone of voice (if you are being your authentic self that last one should come very easily.) Have the same profile image across all digital platforms, being consistent makes you distinctive. I use a sunflower across most of my posts because it’s significant to me and my business – I’ll help you stand tall and shine above the rest – followers now associate me with sunflowers and regularly tag me in sunflower related posts. Make sure it’s something you like as you should really stick with it and avoid changing your branding too often.
Make quality posts consistently!
Be active! Don’t post 10 times one day and then don’t bother again for a month and because you are a bit quiet and have some spare time knock out another 10 posts and ignore it for the rest of the month. There’s plenty of planning tools out there to help you plan, we’ll come to that later. I have a friend who is an influencer with close to 50,000 followers – she has posted good, consistent and quality content for over 4 years, hardly missing a day – there’s no such thing as a quick win.
Be nice
Not just in the sense of keeping negativity to a minimum. Don’t put together great posts and then sit back and wait for people to start commenting – it is Social Media after all, not self media. Identify 10 accounts each day and comment on their Instagram posts, 5 on Facebook and 5 on LinkedIn, don’t get me started on Twitter, it works for very specific niches but it’s the least useful of the big 4 in my experience.
These could be accounts that do something similar to you, you could perhaps get a chance to collaborate or learn something new, a local business, something that interests you…I interact a lot with my favourite coffee shop, what do I get out of it – nothing although they do often share my posts but they do have the best coffee and Wi-Fi in my local area so its nice to deservedly big them up and engage.
Be a Storyteller
Human beings are predisposed to enjoy stories. Think of Social Media as a campfire, people sitting round and telling their stories – the most interesting ones get passed on and shared or even better people want to come and sit at your campfire and listen, your fire burns brighter. Make your stories worth hearing, your content worth sharing and authentic, don’t copy others.
While we are on Stories – I love Instagram and Facebook Stories – use your highlights to showcase yourself at the top of that all important feed. Remember – in very simple terms that your grid/feed is to grow your following and your Stories are to keep your existing followers interested. That’s in very basic terms but it helps you decided where to broadcast which content.
Be insightful
Use your insights, research your hashtags, then do it some more. I have 4 honed sets of hashtags I keep copy and pasted in my phone on every device I own, I research and edit them weekly. Your insights will tell you when your audience is looking and who they are – remember that, you are being yourself, but you are writing to attract your audience and ideal client.
Don’t guess which hashtags work, don’t guess which posts work and which ones don’t there’s so much information available to you, use it! I now rarely post at weekends on Instagram as I get very little engagement – that saves me time and energy and gives me precious weekend time without engaging with followers.
Be organised
Plan, plan and plan some more. I have weird and wonderful mix of planning tools, I’m yet to find one I like for all platforms. Hootsuite is a good all rounder and my favourite for LinkedIn and Twitter. Planoly is the absolute bee’s knees for Instagram, it makes me so happy and there’s a free version which has most of the decent features, if you can cope with the adverts. I like to use Facebook’s own scheduling tools to plan my Facebook posts, I like them a lot – you can now post to Instagram too but as much as I’ll tell you all to stay with the trends, I’m a creature of habit when it comes to planning.
I also have a magical overarching Google document with all my planned posts in one place. I’m currently involved in over 35 accounts excluding my own so it’s unlikely you’ll have that many to contend with but it’s a great idea to have seasonal campaigns and prompts at the ready.
Just for fun…
Whats your favourite quote: ‘if you are sad add red lipstick and attack’
One thing on your bucket list: To have a dachshund called Roger and go to Tokyo – not with Roger!
One thing that makes you happy: Yoga makes me happy. The opportunity to shut the world out and sooth my soul for a couple of hours a week keeps me sane (ish)
Favourite Drink: Gin! Since I was 18 before it became trendy!
Favourite place: Yorkshire. I live in the most beautiful place in the world!
About Clare
Clare Clifford from Sunshine Digital Media is a digital marketing goddess! Clare has helped a multitude of businesses shine online. Specialising in producing engaging & creative content for social and digital marketing, to help businesses grow, gain exposure to the right customers and all in Plain English!
Based in Leeds she has worked on end to end campaigns and digital strategies for the likes of Boots, Travelodge, First Group PLC and The Church of England. Her passion is working with SME businesses and seeing the results her big brand expertise has on their enterprises.
For more tips, prompts and updates follow Clare at:
If you’d like to learn more about shining online and turning those posts into pounds Clare’s holding an event in Leeds on the 6th November – you will get 2.5 hours of expert advice and excellent cake for just £25
