We live in an attention economy, and brands are competing for mindshare. As of August 2020, 3.81 billion people use social media worldwide, according to platform reports, or 49.03% of the world’s total population.

Given this massive user base, social media is a powerful awareness play for brands. A strong brand presence on social media can drive consumers to purchase and allow your audience to become consumers and advocates. It can be integrated into every part of a growing business, from sales to customer service and support.

This user base voraciously consumes and share massive amounts of content. They are also active on platforms including Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok. Those are just four of the twelve most heavily used platforms.

How are you thinking about creating content for your audience within each platform with so many options available?

As with many things in life, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to social media. Trends always change, and brands need to pivot to speak to their audience and customers’ interests. However, some core strategies would be wise to follow.

Know Your Customer and Audience

You should be able to answer fundamental questions about your customer and target audience. Who are they, and what are their social media habits? Why do they use social media? What “language” do they speak, and are you speaking that same “language”?

It might be cool to follow a trend or jump on something that the Internet is buzzing about, but is your audience talking about it? What does your audience care about? What do they look for from you, their brand, on social media?

Track and Measure Results

When you follow that “cool” trend, are you tracking performance and engagement to drill down on why it is successful or not? 56% of all social marketers use social data to understand their target audience better. Still, only 23% of social marketers use social data to measure ROI, and 16% use social data for competitive insights.

No variable is too small to track. Color, #hashtag use, image vs. video, polls, and more are all relevant data you can use to determine your next campaign or initiative on social media.

Create and Be Creative

You know your audience; you know your product or service. You know the conversations that are happening online and what “language” your audience is speaking. So, why wait to jump into the fray?

Launch that YouTube channel, repurpose a popular piece of content, and update it for a different platform. Start a digital series strictly for Instagram; utilize stories. Turn those case studies into a podcast series.

Understanding your audience and their interests can turn a piece of social content into a powerful awareness play.

Don’t Be Afraid

More is lost through indecision than the wrong decision. Social media is here to stay, don’t let the fear of making mistakes paralyze you from doing anything on social. If your content is falling flat and you are using metrics, you see indicators as to why, pivot, and try it again. Take the learnings and make it better.

Social media is a “follow” and “likes” economy. As such, some pieces of content won’t get as many likes and shares as you hope, and sometimes you might lose followers. But negative returns in the “follow” and “likes” economy aren’t necessarily about your content frequency.

According to Sprout Social’s 2020 Social Media Index, only 24% of consumers unfollow brands because they post too much. If you are putting out relevant content, your audience will consume it voraciously and advocate.

You have to be in it to win it, and social media is no different. Facebook boasts 2.7 billion active users per month, YouTube checks in at 2 billion, Instagram is over 1.1 billion, TikTok is rapidly gaining with 689 million, nearly doubling Twitter, which stands at 353 million. LinkedIn has 250 million monthly active users, but only 3 million share content every week.

Your audience and customers are there. You should engage and communicate with them across multiple platforms and looking for different ways to speak to their interests.