Give Your Social Media Some Personality
By Graysen Reid
Are your social media accounts boring? Hopefully, the answer is no.
Social media has quickly become a popular way for businesses to promote themselves and create a recognizable brand. It’s easy for an organization to create an account and post about its products or services, but that doesn’t begin to realize their full social media potential.
To really be effective on social networking sites, businesses must find a way to show a bit of personality along with their brand. People can quickly get tired of seeing the same types of posts in their feed. What will interest them is humor, emotion, and the faces behind your company.
Here are five ways that your business can make that happen:
- Create conversation. If you want to create buzz and conversation, sometimes you have to generate it yourself. Share articles about industry-related issues and pose questions to your followers. Ask their thoughts and opinions. If you get people talking, they might spend more time looking at your page and what you have to offer. Similarly, comment on other articles or ideas that are relevant to your industry. You want to show expertise and build conversation that will reinforce your brand to potential followers.
- Tell your story. Beyond hearing about your products and services, your followers want to know your company story: Where you came from and how you got to where you are today. By telling your story you create a connection between your followers and your brand. This shows there is more to who you are than what they often see.
- Use humor. Everybody loves humor – as long as it’s done the right way. Humor on social media can be tricky and it may take some time to feel out your audience. One way to do this is to post gifs or memes. Gifs are short, looped videos often used as reactions or to show emotion. Usually, gifs leverage pop culture references. In the same way, memes can be a funny way to express an idea. Using gifs and memes may seem uncomfortable at first, but the more you use them, the easier it becomes.
- Show who you are. – Show your followers the people who make your organization what it is. Often, posts that showcase employees get the most interaction and views. People love to see themselves and their family and friends on social media. Take advantage of this by giving shoutouts to your employees or creating posts about promotions or new hires.
- Be authentic. Social media is filled with people and posts that are contrived. People want to connect with brands and companies that are authentic. Make sure your personality is true to what your company believes in.
Creating a personality on social media is a process. It takes time for your followers to get a true sense of your brand and who you are as a company. But it pays off when you create a personality that your followers will want to look for whenever they scroll through their feed.
Graysen Reid is a Dux account coordinator and social media specialist.