A Viral Social Media Strategy That Will Make You Popular

If you are a business owner you probably already know the importance of being present on all the major social media networks.

So what is your social media strategy?

I will tell you the most common one –

1. Create a copy for the post.
2. Get an image to go with it.
3. Write a catchy title
4. Add a bunch of relative hashtags
5. Publish on all major platforms like twitter+ facebook+ instagram+ linkedin+ pinterest & more.

Does this sum up your strategy?

Well I have news for you – that is the universal strategy! The easiest and crappiest, and the most boring content is created this way!

This is BAD strategy, if we must call it a strategy in the first place.

So how we improve on this? How does one create a better engaging content strategy?

Do You have anything to say?

Don’t bore the people who happen to see your social media post while scrolling through the latest updates. Your boring posts will be rewarded by indifference & correctly so.

You have only yourself to blame.

So what are you doing on social media? What do you want to say! Give a long hard thought about what you want to talk about and how you will align it to your internal goals of branding, traffic or better sales.

More importantly, how will you make your message interesting and relevant to your audience?

You are lucky

We are lucky to be alive and be in our prime in this age of social media. It is so easy to extend your reach and awareness to millions of people.

The only problem is that everyone is trying to do that! So you have endless noise everywhere with everyone trying to get attention!

So how to set yourself apart? By –

1. Being yourself
2. Developing a personality for your brand
3. By creating a two-way discussion on social media
4. Being the best solution to your customer’s problem
5. Even by giving away valuable stuff for free

Understand the Social Media Platforms

All platforms are different. Their audiences are also different.

People go to Facebook to connect with family and friends. On facebook text and images and long-form posts with casual language work well.

People, more specifically women, go to Pinterest to look for answers to problems / or to find interest-related things that can be collected on a board. It is a very visual medium! Great for infographics!

People go to youtube to learn something or entertain themselves! People expect to stay there for a while. Long-form video content works best. The audience and the youtube algorithm both prefer longer duration.

Similarly, Twitter and Linkedin are conversational mediums. People use them to talk. To actually have a conversation.

So you see all these platforms are very different! People use them in different ways for different purposes!

Now imagine what you will get if you use the most common and standard bad social strategy that I outlined before.

Make a copy – get a picture – write a title – add hashtags – throw it everywhere!

And then you are surprised why people are not engaging with your content anywhere, at all!

How To Create a High Engagement Social Media Strategy.

Here are some of the steps that I recommend. Make further changes according to your business/niche/requirement

Step1. Identify your Social media Goal

1. Increase followers
2. Traffic to Website
3. Branding
4. Product Promotion
5. Complaint Redressal
6. Consumer Education

Step 2. Understand your audience demographic

1. Men/Women
2. Age
3. Interests
4. Pain Points

Step3. Identify Media Sources for your content

1. Sign up for an image library or a video library such as Shutterstock, Freepik, StoryBlocks.
2. There are some free alternatives too. Pixabay, Unsplash

Step 4. Have at least a weeks posts scheduled in advance

Step 5. Identify which social media platform is your brand buddy?

If you are in the education or sports niche for example you may benefit by creating long-form video content which aligns well with Youtube, Facebook video, and IGTV.

But, If you are into jewellery or clothing Pinterest, traditional Instagram and Facebook may be more suitable! You can create stunning visual images with great copy and it will work!

And if you are moving in the personal branding direction, a conversational medium like Twitter maybe be more helpful to strike a conversation and perhaps move into the movers and shakers circle of your niche!

My Secret – Viral Post Formats!

Content being shared on social media should be discussion-worthy! Do not get lost in the noise.

Share in a format that encourages people to interact with it!

If a social post does not fall in the following category, don’t bother publishing and boring your audience to death. So here they are –

1. Quiz
2. Poll
3. Question
4. Unique information
5. Latest information
6. How To – Guide
7. Enlightening Quote
8. Free (Ebooks, Articles, Course)
9. “Best Of” Series
10. Beta Access
11. Ready to use Template

Pro Tip: Don’t make this mistake!

When you are fairly new to the platform, don’t try to get people to click on links to send them to your website.

Don’t look withhold any information, or share only partial info in the hope of sending people somewhere else.

Your prospective audience does not know or trust you yet, not many will click on links. Instead, you need to create long-form posts aimed at creating discussions and engagement. The platform algorithm will love you too for not trying to divert its traffic away.

You can use external links much more once you have gained substantial followers and their trust!

In conclusion, don’t make the mistake of lumping out repeated and mediocre content everywhere! By the way are you at Clubhouse? What’s your opinion of it?

Finally, if you have more or different ideas let me know your thoughts in the comments!