With over 4 billion active social media users worldwide, standing out online grows more challenging every day. To thrive in 2024 and beyond, brands need strategic, multifaceted approaches to improve reach. Strong social visibility requires understanding your audience, crafting engaging content, leveraging trending features, collaborating with other businesses, and actively analyzing performance.
The good news? With some effort, patience, and savvy strategy, pretty much any brand can elevate its social presence. In the sections below, we’ll explore a few impactful tactics to help increase your visibility this year.
The Evolving Social Media Landscape
It’s no secret that social media platforms are constantly changing – what worked yesterday may not work today. Consequently, staying current with trends and evolutions is crucial for anyone trying to boost social visibility.
The social media landscape looks vastly different than it did even a few years ago. Emerging platforms like TikTok have disrupted the space, while pillars like Facebook continue rolling out new features. With those changes, user expectations and behaviors are shifting too. For example, video content generally sees much higher engagement than static posts today.
All of this considered, keeping a pulse on social media trends will likely remain critical. Key evolutions to watch include the rise of content like Stories and Reels, increasingly prevalent social commerce capabilities, the normalization of influencer marketing, and the growing emphasis on authentic community-building over hard selling.
The brands that adapt and realign their strategies will be primed for social media success. This means getting inspiration from trendsetters in your industry, regularly reviewing platform updates and your performance data, and being open to revamping your approach.
WolfPack’s Instagram Profile: Pinned Content, Stories, Links, and a Concise, On-Brand Bio
Optimize Your Profiles
Your social media profile is your digital first impression – it’s a visitor’s glimpse into your brand. That’s why optimizing your profile is a crucial first step for improving social visibility this year.
Just as you want to put your best foot forward when meeting someone new, your profile should convey your brand in the best possible light. Start by selecting a profile photo and cover image that represents your aesthetic and values. Use clear, high-quality images and graphics.
Secondly, make an impact with your bio. Summarize what you do, highlight your differentiators, and establish your brand voice in 160 characters or less. Share your purpose, passion, and personality. The “about” section offers more real estate to share your origin story, accomplishments, and mission. Bring it to life with visuals, videos, and links.
Check that your username, handle, and URL match across platforms and reinforce your brand name. Finally, pinning the most important posts to the top of your profile can give new visitors a sampling of stellar content.
Crafting Magnetic Content
With your profiles optimized, it’s time to populate your platforms with content that captivates and converts. Start by building detailed buyer personas to intimately understand your target audiences.
What pain points can you help solve? What topics pique their interest? How do they prefer to consume information? Once you know, use these insights to create tailored content.
You can explore a variety of formats to keep followers engaged in busy feeds. Balance long-form educational posts with quick hits like polls and quizzes. Give behind-the-scenes glimpses into your brand with candid stories, relevant tips, and Q&As. Also, consider launching a podcast or YouTube series with value-packed episodes. The goal is to educate, inspire, or entertain your audience.
Then, optimize content for scanning with eye-catching graphics, bullets, headers, and pull quotes. Choose visually appealing images and videos that align with your brand style. Promote your content across platforms and ask lots of questions to make it interactive and spark meaningful conversations.
Top Types of Instagram Content Worldwide, This Time Last Year
Leveraging Stories and Reels
Stories and Reels are essential for cutting through the noise and capturing attention quickly. These ephemeral formats (meaning they disappear after a set amount of time) allow brands to showcase casual, in-the-moment content.
When users are flipping through fast-paced streams of Stories, you have mere seconds to grab their attention before they tap swipe away. The upside is that it’s easy to start using these formats.
- Give sneak peeks at new services, promotions, or behind-the-scenes office moments to show personality.
- Re-share user-generated content like social posts mentioning your brand and other feedback to build authenticity.
- Ask engaging questions and run polls to spark conversation.
- Use stickers, filters, and text to make the mundane content pop.
- Experiment with trending TikTok effects and challenges.
Sharing unfiltered glimpses into your brand makes users feel connected and keeps you top of mind. The ephemerality also builds FOMO, enticing followers to frequently check in.
Empowering Your Audience With User-Generated Content
Believe it or not, your followers are full of creative ideas and passion for your brand. If you haven’t tried it already, tap into this by featuring user-generated content (UGC) – social posts, photos, videos, and more made by your customers.
The best UGC campaigns encourage participation while staying on brand. For instance, run a themed photo contest that ties into your products, services, or values. Alternatively, simply invite users to share posts showcasing your work – from reviews to creative suggestions.
Reposting UGC on your main social media profiles your existing audience and encourages visibility to new potential followers. It provides an authentic endorsement from real customers. Here are a few of the best ways to invite UGC:
- Create fun branded hashtags that fans can include
- Share user photos or videos and tag them
- Give monthly prizes or rewards to top UGC
- Ask for user input on new products, services, content, etc.
- Feature a creative “Follower of the Week“
UGC is free, organic advertising. It fosters community and gives fans ownership when you empower your audience, which can allow your engagement to skyrocket.
Mastering Hashtags to Boost Discovery
Next on our list, hashtags are essential tools for expanding your social reach and visibility. They help users find content and accounts related to specific topics or interests. Understanding and leveraging hashtags will get your content in front of new, relevant audiences.
Initially, research hashtags popular in your industry by looking at competitors’ top posts and Stories. Additionally, test different hashtags with your audience to see which drives the most engagement.
Aim for a mix of popular and niche tags. For instance, broad hashtags like #socialmedia or #marketing help reach the masses. Meanwhile, niche tags like #socialmediamarketing or #contentcreation target more specific crowds.
When creating hashtags, keep them short, memorable, and descriptive. For example, turn your keywords and phrases like “social media tips” into #socialmediatips. Consistency also helps, so regularly use branded hashtags like #WolfpackAdvising.
Additionally, be strategic about placement. In captions, put 1-2 key hashtags near the start. In Stories, scatter them throughout for a better chance of trending. Use enough hashtags to expand reach, but not so many that your caption is cluttered.
Lastly, follow viral hashtag trends when they align with your brand. Participate in trending topic conversations by using relevant trending hashtags. This allows you to organically insert yourself into viral moments.
Form Strategic Partnerships
Partnering with complementary brands significantly expands social reach and visibility. Look for related industries or niches that serve a similar target audience.
For example, a home inspector could partner with a pest control company on a home maintenance campaign. Start small with low-risk collaborations like co-hosting a social media contest or swapping shoutouts. Offer to guest post on each other’s blogs or be interviewed for podcasts. This is a great way to establish trust and alignment!
As relationships develop, explore larger collaborations:
- Co-create an in-depth piece of gated content like an ebook, checklist, or webinar to generate leads
- Host a joint virtual event like a panel discussion or workshop
- Promote each other’s services, online courses, or memberships,
- Collaborate on a YouTube video series or document a joint case study
- Share content across your combined email lists and social followings
- Run a cross-promoted social ad campaign around a shared theme
Research brands to ensure your values, aesthetics, and audiences align. Equally important, define clear partnership objectives and metrics before collaborating. Thoughtful partnerships have the power to grant access to entire new networks!
Measuring Performance
Analytics provide necessary insights that can help optimize your social strategy. While it can be easier said than done, try not to be intimidated by the numbers – with some basic tracking, you can unlock data that clears everything up.
To start, look at built-in analytic tools like Facebook and Instagram Insights. Look at when your followers are most active on social media to plan ideal posting times when more people will see your content. Check which post types and formats get the most likes, comments, and shares to inform what you create next. Monitor how your overall follower count, reach, and engagement are growing over weeks and months to spot trends.
Additionally, it can help to choose a few key metrics to focus on like follower growth, post impressions, and website clicks from social. While data shouldn’t drive all your decisions, regular reviews will reveal what’s resonating so you can refine your approach.
For example, if you notice contest posts consistently perform better than educational posts, listen to your audience! Similarly, if Thursday evenings see lower engagement, consider scaling back posting at that time.
Essentially, let the numbers guide you toward better content, timing, and strategies – but don’t forget the human element. Creative risks, meaningful connections, and a willingness to learn from mistakes are just as crucial for social media success.
Conclusion
All in all, the social media landscape will only grow more competitive as we head deeper into the 2020s. However, with some strategic fine-tuning and a keen eye on your industry, nearly any brand can elevate its social visibility this year.
When you start, make sure your social profiles are optimized and start crafting captivating content tailored to your audience’s needs! From there, always keep a finger on the pulse of your analytics. It’s important to experiment, learn from failures, and remember social media is about meaningful community-building at its core.
However, to get guidance on your existing strategies or help to start from scratch, the expert team at WolfPack Advising has you covered – schedule an online consultation today!
