Social media is a huge tool for you to connect with your audience and to reach new listeners. However, it can be really challenging to create and maintain engaging social media accounts. Writing engaging posts and posting them at the right time, using hashtags, having appealing images on your profiles, and writing short, but informative bios are some of the major things that you need to think about regarding your accounts. It can definitely be a lot to think about and even more to get right on your profiles. So, we've compiled our best advice for optimizing your social media accounts.
Engaging Posts
Your posts firstly need to be on-brand with your radio station. In order for your posts to be engaging, they have to be truly aimed at your target audience. So, think about the language that you use, what your posts are about, and how you are presenting the content. If you believe that all of these factors appeal to your target audience, then you are likely creating some engaging posts. Other than the words that you use, also be mindful of the images that you post. Just as you want to have interesting messages, you want to post attractive images that represent your brand well. Generally speaking, try to post a variety of content regularly. For example, you might consider posting once per day on your Twitter with a different kind of post every day. This might look like:
- Sunday: Sharing an article from an outside source that is aimed at your target audience
- Monday: Posting something inspirational or funny to get the week started
- Tuesday: Posting something educational or informational (Perhaps an article you wrote or simply some information in the form of tweets)
- Wednesday: Posting about something special coming up on your radio station to get your audience excited
- Thursday: Sharing an article from an outside source that is aimed at your target audience
- Friday: Sharing your opinion on news that is relevant to your station
- Saturday: Posting something anecdotal about yourself
It really is up to you and your station's brand to decide what kind of posts are best for your social media. Some of these kinds of posts might work great for your brand whereas others might not work at all. If you do a lot of live events, you might want to incorporate more opinions and personality-driven posts throughout the week whereas if you don't do live events, you might want to focus on sharing news and informational content. Think of some kinds of posts that are really on-brand and brainstorm engaging messages and/or images that fit into those categories. Then, you can create a schedule that consists of different kinds of posts every day. Try not to post too many of the same kinds of content, especially in a row. So, if you have 3 kinds of posts that you believe work for your station, alternate them throughout the week so no 2 days have the same kind of post in a row. Not only do the messages and images themselves have to be engaging, but the kinds of posts need to be engaging, meaning you want variety throughout the week on your social media profiles.
Posting Schedule
Coming up with a plan for what you are going to post each day is extremely important. Since you are trying to connect with listeners, both current and new, via your social media accounts, you need to make sure that you are consistently posting. You do not want current listeners or new listeners looking at your accounts and the most recent posts are from several days ago. Posting daily, perhaps even multiple times, should be a priority. Now, keep in mind what amount is appropriate for each platform. Posting once a day on Facebook is a perfectly reasonable amount and posting multiple times per day on Twitter is also reasonable. However, with Instagram, posting 2-3 times per week would likely be a more realistic amount as daily posts can become overwhelming based on the nature of the platform.
As for days and times that are best to post, there is a lot of research that has been done about the best times to post on the different platforms. However, the best way that you can begin to understand when you should post is to take a look at your demographics or if you are still growing your audience, think about the demographics of the audience you are trying to reach. Consider when your audience is online, both in terms of days and times. Whenever your audience is online is when you want to post. Take a look at the engagement on your posts and see if you can find a trend based on when you post. Is there a day and time that you tend to receive more likes, views, replies/comments, retweets/shares, etc? Or, is there a day and time that you consistently receive no engagement? Post when you notice that you receive more engagement and refrain from posting when you've generally received less engagement. Also, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook all have audience demographics tools for business accounts. These tools can give you clear information about when your audience is generally online.
#Hashtags
Incorporating hashtags into your posts, particularly on Twitter and Instagram, is a great way to open yourself up to be discovered. You should hashtag the key words in your posts. These words should be words that you imagine people would be looking at specifically on social media. So, for example, hashtagging celebrity names and event names are great ways to utilize hashtags. However, hashtags can become too much if you use too many in a single post. Try to limit your hashtags to only the most important words and ensure that the hashtags are largely spaced out in your post. You want hashtags to be a possible way for new people to discover you, you don't want them to interfere with the readability and success of your post.
Appealing Images
Profile pictures and banner images are the images that appear on your profile. You want these to summarize your radio station. So, if you have a logo and a banner image on your Live365 station profile, these are great images to use. If you don't have a logo and/or banner image, consider creating a logo and banner image for your radio station. This is an extremely important overall aspect of your branding. If you are looking for a more personal vibe to your social media accounts, maybe consider using an image of yourself for the profile picture and a station-branded banner image.
Short, Informative Bios
Writing a short and clever, but informative bio to use on your social media is a great way to quickly win over the people looking at your accounts. Given that bios appear at the top of social media profiles, alongside the profile picture, they are often what people form their first impressions on. Of course, they can look through your profile, read your posts, and look at your images, but you could certainly win a listener over by having a great bio. Think about a quick way to convey what you and your station are about while including your personality and something attention-getting.
Given the power of social media, optimizing your accounts should be a high priority. Of course, your passion is your station and making it the best that it can be should be your highest priority. But, there is a ton of growth potential if you really put some time and effort into your social media accounts. So, create a posting schedule and make your profiles as visually appealing and engaging as you can. You might be surprised at what a social media profile facelift can do for your brand.
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