The popularity of social networking continues to skyrocket. With the Internet becoming gradually available around all corners of the globe, the usage of tech devices or smartphones is exponential. To capitalize on all of the engagement taking place one has to mindful of what content should be shared via these new online masses and apply the rules of engagement that are tailored to each individual social network.
Once upon a time a kilobyte or even a megabyte was once considered a lot of space, but according to this infographic the era of zettabytes is upon us. SearchStorage tells us a zettabyte is approximately a thousand exabytes or a billing terabytes. In other words, it is a lot of information created, shared and stored.
To get a comprehensive look at where all of this information is being born (metrics from a visual graphic), see below a few stats that illustrate this vast amount of content:
- 252 million domains were registered in 2013
- 500 million plus tweets sent daily
- 25 Billion shared and created content monthly
- 100 hours of video uploaded per minute on YouTube
- 2.3 million new posts on Tumblr every hour
To filter this massive amounts of information there are certain types of 'viral content' that need special attention. To attract lots of users online you need to focus your resources on: blogs or articles, interactive content, video & audio, and infographics. If you cannot do them all at once choose two of the previously mentioned categories because whatever the audience may be they have the tendency to interact with these aspects specifically.
Strategies on how to get up and running on social media
There have been tons articles and blog posts of how to or guides to using traditional social networks (Facebook, Twitter, Google Plus, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.). In a separate blog post about "What Social Media Sites Are Best for Your Business", you can explore alternative social channels if you find the existing platforms complicated to use.
Three areas to integrate into your social media outreach are: social media management, networking, develop knowledge, and design. The tools explained in the URL of the previous paragraph provide great depth, further enhance discovering other avenues or options from other popular software applications that enable you to attain your social media goals.
Aside from going after your targeted audience get to know them well. The easy-to-use email marketing platform, GetResponse, provided helpful insights on a blog post, which illustrates how to capture the hearts and minds of your readers. This can be done by conducting surveys and interviews to see what are the missing pieces to improve the company's overall perception. All of these tactics once you master they will reveal or show the company as proactive, listens, and really cares about its customers.
What to share online via the social sphere
One idea companies, entrepreneurs, small-to-medium sized businesses can practice is sharing content that is not necessarily their own. This exemplifies an attitude of collaboration with others and they acknowledge other experts from their industry.
You do not want to stray from your industry, but keep a clear focus on why you are sharing certain content. After all the 'social' in social media means to interact with one or more individuals and the definition will vary depending who you ask.
Your target audience will probably appreciate good and clean humor from time-to time. So find something to make them laugh about. People share content because they agree or disagree with something. It might even answer questions about a product or service. Appeal to their human side because after all said and done customers want to be contacted, nurtured, comforted and acknowledged in their day-to-day interactions with your company.
Takeaways
Finally, to get things going you need to keep in mind once you are online do not forget to monitor you online conversations. Content that becomes viral comes in all shapes and sizes that includes negative publicity. You need a social media policy in place and a team that understands social media etiquette.
Practicing social media care or implementing the notion of being socially devoted is of great importance. The social media analytics company Socialbakers was able to make it an industry standard where brands should have a short turnaround time to response to customer questions, concerns or complaints.
The longer a brand or a company responds online the more you online reputation loses importance and the negative image will stay for a long time in the minds of customers. Do your part and create meaningful dialogues with the people who follow your brand.
(data / shutterstock)