Social media marketing continues to grow at exponential rates and remains one of the simplest tools a business owner can use to reach their audience and further deepen their digital footprint.

According to Social Pilot over 3.5 billion people worldwide have active online accounts which exemplifies the tremendous opportunities to build and connect with your audience. It does take time and effort to develop a strong foundational footprint but where else are you able to assemble a sizable following at pennies per impression?

My dad used to say “if you throw enough shit against the wall, somethings gonna stick.” This still holds true but I recommend a planned attack, some SMM strategy. Nothing willy nilly if you’d prefer better results. So let’s dive in!

Here’s 13 tips you can use to maximize your social media footprint

1. Social visibility – include all social channels in your marketing collateral (print and online), email signatures, and your website. Don’t make people have to click, search and discover. It should be an act of ease and grace to connect with you on their terms.
2. Profiles – make sure they are all up to date with cohesive branding and content. If your information is scattered with various profile details, obscure images, varied company/service descriptions, you’ll confuse your audience.
3. Consistency and frequency are key – post several times daily. Don’t be a flash in the pan with sporadic posts. You won’t give people a reason to follow you or look for your content. You’ll get lost and forgotten.
   • Incorporate video and branded images.
   • Content – rich, relevant, and sharable.
4. Ask clients to “check in” and tag the business. The more the merrier right? Each time a client checks in, a little bell goes off. Figuratively speaking of course. What greater way to help promote your business and generate a little social proof with people clamoring in your front door. To take it a step further, offer an incentive.
5. Build relationships – engage with your audience, share and comment on their content. Keep the social in “social media” and humanize your brand. Buyers and prospects don’t want robots or the sound of silence. Relationship marketing develops authentic relationships based on real connections and emotion. Reach out.
6. Branded visuals – incorporate branded images into your marketing magic. Your images should be strong, convey a message, emotion or thought and most important, it should contain your logo or company name. It’s been proven that visuals generate a greater response to your posts.
   1. Tweets with images receive 150% more retweets than tweets without images (source)
7. Hashtags – use popular, trending or industry hashtags. Join the conversation, gain authority, share rich/relevant content. #UseHashtags
8. Social proof – Display (ask for) testimonials/reviews. People buy from people. People trust people. People will follow the crowd. Be the people that people love to talk about and ask them to talk about you. Social proof generates business with the peer to peer discussions.
9. Local business – make sure all online digital maps/places/directories are up to date with your address/phone and hours. Finding your whereabouts shouldn’t feel like a mission impossible or a CSI investigation.
10. Blogging – weekly/bimonthly – go for daily if you can or hire someone that will
    1. Consistent blogging pings Google and other search engines to new activity
    2. Increases SEO with keywords and tags
    3. Content is shared by your network, bringing people to your website and social platforms
    4. Cross share the content on your various accounts to drive site traffic
    5. Write for the audience and their needs/problems/pain points. Your content isn’t about you or what you feel is essential in the world. It’s all about your buyers and what moves them most.
11. Blog commenting – Each time you comment on other relevant business blogs you have the opportunity to provide your website which links to your name. It can be time consuming, but create a few keyword alerts with daily email digests, or use tools like BuzzSumo, Feedly and Tagboard to discover appropriate content.
12. LinkedIn – comment on daily pulse articles as those are shared in public domain. Public domain is your free for all link to the search engines.
13. Team involvement – suggest that staff also share and like content. This helps FB algorithms and exposure. The more people who like/share content, the greater chance of being seen, showing up in keyword searches and increasing social proof once again.

Social Media is not just a spoke on the wheel of marketing. It’s becoming the way entire bicycles are built. Ryan Lilly

Social media and the online environment has become an integral part of people’s lives and it’s only going to continue to explode. With approximately 3.5 billion people online, don’t you want to wriggle in with your target market?

Be discovered before your competition?

Maintain a stronghold on your market share?

Distribute those digital breadcrumbs to maximize your social media footprint and give your audience a full meal, not just a tidbit snack.

Article Written by Susan Poirier of Business 2 Community