Today I’m here to tell you that I’ve only been teaching half of what you can do to make your business and brand stand out on social media. And for that, I am sorry. But we’re righting the ship today on a short episode of the Small-Minded Podcast.

While I feel like I’ve helped you learn the in-depth how-to’s of creating content for social over the years, I recently realized that the steps I take behind-the-scenes is oftentimes just as important in getting desired results online. The liking, commenting, and sharing; the time spent finding out the “next cool thing”; and the messages I send daily in PMs, DMS, and emails all add up, but it’s often not what you see as an online follower or podcast listener.

These actions we take to interact with our audience is called engagement. This includes likes, comments, shares, messages, clicks, and more. We typically talk about engagement in analyzing what our audience is doing for u in terms of story views, shares, reach, etc. that we received on recent posts. 

But our engagement as the account holder needs to be proactive and consistent too. We need to be reaching out intentionally to our followers to like their posts or strategically engaging on the accounts of those we hope to cross paths with. 

Why?

Because people are showing up on social media to connect with other people. On either side of these screens are real people looking for emotional support, entertainment, or educational tips for helping them in their lives. It can be easy to get caught up in the colors, fonts, and animations on our displays, but to use social media for its original purpose, to see the good that these platforms can do, and to create real, authentic communities here online, we need to remember that we are here to help people.

If you want to be successful on social, you can start by engaging with and listening to your followers…then incorporate some of the more flashy things later on 😉

Engaging with your audience in 15 minutes per week

Once per week, I want you to take 15 minutes to scroll through social with the intention not to produce content, but to show up as a real, live person to your followers. Here’s the process I use:

1. Set a timer for 15 minutes
2. For the first 5ish minutes, scroll through your feed and take the following tactical actions:

• a. like any posts that make you smile or think about them

• b. thoughtfully comment on posts that make you belly laugh or make you say “wow! that is really helpful” 

• c. share any posts you’d like to get more reach or that you think would benefit your own followers/friends

• d. tag and friends or brands in the comments of posts that are relevant

• e. DM/PM someone who has inspired you or continually shows up to help

• f. follow any new accounts that impress you

• g. in short, behave like a real person from your business account and be social

3. For the second 5ish minutes, do intentional outreach to cross paths with others in your local area, industry or ideal audience. Seek out new businesses in your town and set their notifications to “see first” or head over to a mentor/influencer you’d like to catch the eye of and engagement-bomb them. An engagement bomb is going to their Page or Profile and liking and commenting on several of their posts all at the same time. So the next time they log in, all they will see is a bunch of notifications with your name on it. It will catch their attention, and it will create a lasting impression. Use this strategically and not back-to-back on the same account. Think of it like welcoming someone new to your town. You want to take repeated small steps to introduce them to you and ultimately create a friendship with them. Maybe the first day you wave from the sidewalk, the next day you leave cookies on the front porch, the next weekend you invite them for coffee, with the ultimate goal of connecting with that new person. Same goes for social. Intentional, repeated outreach and engagement will result in online friendships and relationships and help you expand your social network.
4. For the last 5 minutes, I want you to go back to your Newsfeed and practice social listening. Social listening is a fancy word for paying attention to what’s important to your audience. Is there a new meme making the rounds that you can use on your own profile? Is there new industry news that would be important to share with your followers? Is there a super creative Reel that you can save and draw inspiration from the next time you’re in a creative dry spell? This time is meant for you to simply take it in and get creative ideas for content you can make to help your audience. How is this engaging? Because creating content that is relevant to your followers shows them that you care. And isn’t that what all humans want most?

Ok, enough of the tactics. I did say I would keep this short.

So now I want you to set that timer and start your 15-minute engagement session for this week. Refer to the steps above to guide you.

And if you’re looking for some accountability to help you incorporate some of these strategies into your daily social media, head over to this page and enter your email address to get a printable list of daily action steps you can take to grow your social media account!

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