Article By: Stephanie Wilson, DISRUPT Media
With all the different ways people share information across social media it might be a bit hard to determine if you’re reaching your target audience to your full potential. Each website has it’s own unique culture, it’s own sharing system, and different ways of interacting with fellow users. It can all be a bit overwhelming. Even with the varying tools available, there are a few sure fire ways to tell if you’re making the most of your social media exposure.
Customer Engagement – The best way to gauge your success in social media is through interactions with your followers. Are people retweeting you? Reblogging? Pinning? Sharing? This means that your audience is enjoying what you have to say and want to share it with others. It’s essentially free advertising done by your fans to their friends. It doesn’t get any better than that.
Professional Engagement – Whatever it is you want to use social media for, there’s a good chance someone else out there already doing it. Interacting with other professionals within the same field is helpful when trying to grow your audience. Having them engage back is also a sign that you’re being taken seriously by your peers. Even if you are a small company, engaging with the juggernauts of your industry could lead to surprising results. All it takes is for one major account to like what you have to say and share it with their own followers to increase your exposure. Even other small accounts can be helpful when it comes to growing your targeted audience. You might even make a friend who’ll continue helping you increase your online presence.
Being Seen As a Person – Customer engagement can also come in the form of direct communication in the form of asking questions and offering suggestions. This shows that the audience sees you as a reliable and active source on the topic you are discussing. More importantly, they see you as a person, not a computerized account that is programmed to spit out generic information. To keep this trend going, engage back! Answer questions, thank people for their suggestions, and share relevant information from your followers with the rest of your audience.
Customer Appreciation – “Liking” has become a common option on multiple social media sites. What was once essentially known as a Facebook feature can now be found on Pinterest, Twitter, and Tumblr. Even Google+ has something similar, though they call it “+1.” When customers “like” your content they may not necessarily be sharing it with others, but it’s their way of saying they appreciate the content. Sharing your content with others is obviously more beneficial for growing your social media footprint, but feedback like this is valuable for understanding what your customers want and what they will most likely want to share with others later.
Organic Follower Growth – Advertising and giveaways are a great way to start gaining a following, but the true sign of success is when people come to you completely on their own. This can happen when people share your content with friends or it can happen through the specific tools unique tagging system. The latter has proven so successful that even Facebook has started using the hashtag system after being enormously successful for nine years without it. Twitter, Tumblr, and Pinterest all have very active tagging systems meaning you’ll be able to reach the people who are actively looking for content like yours.
