The new year is a great time to evaluate your social media presence. What worked for you in 2016? What didn’t? We want to give you some simple, easy ways to brush up your social media presence. Plus, it feels great to organize your online self! ????
1. GET ON A SCHEDULE!
Having a social media schedule makes posting so much easier. You’ll spend less time wondering when to post to social media and what type of content your fans will love. It doesn’t need to be a complicated system. All you need to do is dedicate time daily or on certain days to research & planning, creating posts, scheduling posts, and responding to comments. Create a system that works for you & adjust as you go!
2. TRY SOMETHING NEW FOR YOUR BUSINESS.
If you only promote your business on Facebook, maybe it’s time try out Instagram too . . . maybe you have a fan base on Snapchat or Twitter. You could look into social media advertising or take a social media training course. Start brainstorming on new things you can try or ways to make what you are already doing fresh again!
3. UPDATE YOUR LINKEDIN PROFILE.
You’ve done a lot to be proud of professionally in 2016, so let everyone know! Add your recent projects, add new skills, update your resume, and make some new connections. Job hunting or not, you should get into the practice of keeping your LinkedIn profile current. You never know what will come your way, and there’s nothing worse than being caught off your game when an opportunity comes knocking!
4.Give everything a good look over.
We think it’s a smart idea to create a checklist for yourself. Something simple like this-
There are lots of lists you could create to help keep your social media organized:
- Before you hit publish checklist
- After posting checklist
- A daily/weekly/monthly checklist
- Best times to post list
- Do’s and Don’ts list
Identify your goals and implement some checklists to keep you on track and prevent overwhelm!
5. Evaluate & focus on the social media channels that are working for you.
Once you are done experimenting with different channels, evaluate which ones get the biggest response from your audience. You may discover that your Pinterest profile is doing way better than your Twitter profile. It will help you decide where to put the bulk of your efforts and what channels you can let go of.
6. UPLOAD A NEW PROFILE PICTURE.
If your profile picture has been the same for a while, it might be time to replace it. Your profile pic is the first thing that people see, so make sure your photo is representative of you or your brand. Good photography is an easy way to make you look more credible. Is your profile pic a logo? Is it pixely? Time to work on that! Make sure your profile picture is the same or similar across all of your channels for extra points!
7. Research your industry & competition!
Stay current on what’s going on in your field. Follow relevant newsletters or read books related to your business. Take a look around and see how others in your field are marketing themselves. How do you compare? This will for sure impact and change the way you present yourself on social media. Everyone has to do their homework to do a good job!
8. FOLLOW NEW PEOPLE AND INTERESTS.
Fill your feed with content and people that matter to you! If you are setting a new resolution, there are tons of people who are already doing what you are trying to do & sharing exactly how they did it online. Follow them to gain new insight and to have shiny new content throughout 2017. You might as well unfollow interests that no longer important to you while you’re at it.
9. Find some free photo resources.
If you’ve just been grabbing whatever pics you find on google, it’s time to stop. There are photo rules for social media and you can get into some monetary trouble if you don’t know them (sadly, we are speaking from experience)! Thankfully, there are so many free photo sites that you can be using right now.
10. Don’t forget to step away from the screen!
Did you spend a little too much time staring at your phone? Get on a schedule, stick to it, and then stop working once your work is done. If this is hard for you, schedule in actual fun. This means no scrolling on your Facebook feed and calling it a “break.” Set time aside to do whatever you love to do. You’ll work better because you will actually be refreshed, and you’ll remember that there are other fun things that you like to do besides killing it at work. Balance!
We hope you enjoyed the holiday season, got some rest, and are ready to have a productive 2017! Thanks for reading!
Pipeline Social Media is a social media marketing agency that offers three approaches to help you increase your social media presence: we can fully manage your social media accounts, we can teach your team how to do it in-house, or we can monitor/coach your team along the way and report back to you.
Maiya Wall
Social Media Community Manager
Pipeline Social Media
