Suppose your business or lifestyle depends on your excellent social media presence. In that case, you need to make sure you are following the latest guidelines and techniques to help you beat the algorithms and get your posts seen by as many people as possible.

Improving your social media isn't easy, but it is possible to build your presence and create a brand that is easily recognizable by everyone as you. The best part is you don't need to spend thousands of dollars to develop an effective marketing campaign as a small business, blogger, or influencer. Still, you need to put in the work, be consistent, and follow the best practices for social media to boost your visibility.

Find The Right Channels

There are many social media channels for you to be active on, but not all of them are worth your time. You need to find out where people are that you want to see your account and be as active on this platform as possible. The main social media accounts are;

• X (Twitter)

• Facebook

• Snapchat

• Tiktok

• Instagram

• Threads

• Pinterest

• LinkedIn

Identify your target audience and where they are most likely to be, and you can create an effective strategy based on the particular platform patterns and posting styles.

That doesn't mean you need to neglect the others, but focusing on the right one can build you a bigger and better following before looking at the rest of them.

Complete Your Profile

Your profile on your social media accounts needs to be the same style and include all of the following;

• A professional photo that meets the size guides for the specific platform, e.g., 400x400px for Facebook and Twitter profiles.

• The same image and branding colors across all of your profiles

• Your name

• Your handle, which should be the same or similar on all platforms for consistency

• Hashtags or keywords to help people find you - these should be related to your account and the type of content you publish

• Links to your website, other social media pages, landing sites, or affiliate links, for example.

Make sure to fill in all parts of your profile so it is complete, and people looking for you personally or for similar accounts can find you and instantly know what to expect from your profile.

Find Your Ideal Posting Times

Your ideal posting times will largely depend on your followers and the times of day they are online and active. While there are general rules about when it is best to publish, e.g., between 9 a.m. and 1 p.m. on Mondays, Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Fridays on Instagram, your audience will largely dictate the appropriate items. You can use many different tools online to help you identify your ideal times, and from here, you can experiment with your schedule until you find something that works for you.

Update Your Equipment

If you are really serious about improving your social media account, then you need to look at the equipment you are using. No longer is it okay to use your smartphone and take low-quality images and videos to publish. You must produce professional quality media to break through the noise and scale media and be recognized. You need to up your game for the best results, whether this is taking a course on photography or videography, investing in a new camera, editing tools, tripod, a DrDrone for aerial photography, backdrops, filters, and lenses to help you create stunning images and videos that capture people's attention for all the right reasons.

Use Multimedia

You need to make sure that you are using the best media for the platform. A multimedia approach is the best way forward. Reels are the main focus on IG, with images and lengthy captions following behind. For Facebook, videos and photos with text are the preferred media uploads for attracting attention. In contrast, Twitter (or X if you prefer) is primarily a text-based app like Threads, which can use any form of media, but text posts tend to do well on both.

Your multimedia approach must be thought through properly to get the maximum benefit on your desired platform. Look at what others in your niche are doing and see what works well for them to get an idea of the correct media type to publish.

Be Active

You need to be active on your leading platforms to push your profile and ensure you get shown in your audience's feeds. When posting, you need to post regularly, but not for the sake of posting. You need to be posting with purpose, and your posts need to be adding value to your feed.

Likewise, with engagement, you need to be engaging correctly with your audience, replying to comments, finding other accounts, and leaving comments that are appropriate for the content posted. Avoid generic “great post” or “lovely pic” type comments, and make sure you engage using proper sentences that are related to the post. This also goes for the captions you post alongside images or videos. They shouldn't just be random thoughts but somehow tied to your posting.

Engage with Brands

While it is essential to reach out to followers and reply to comments and other posts using the same hashtags as you, connecting with brands can help you gain authority and exposure by getting your profile in front of like-minded people. The brands you engage with should be related to your niche. For example, if you are a wellness blogger posting about life on a gluten-free diet, connecting with brands in this field can help you expose your profile to others looking for gluten-free people and write about this topic. The same goes for beauty and fashion accounts; connect with brands and profiles with large followings to help reach more people and generate interest in your account.

Building your social media following and presence won't be easy or something that will happen overnight. Instead, it will take time, patience, and dedication to help you get where you need to be and watch those followers and engagement numbers rise.