How to Leverage Social Media in Your Favor
Social Media sometimes gets a bad rap, but they still have many benefits you can utilize
Present Day
The year is 2021, social media companies like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Snapchat are ruling the minds of young people. These companies only seem to be getting bigger and bolstering up their capabilities to meet the next generation of demands from the consumers.
Many of us remember when social media was a smaller community, and a lot of us do not realize how far this system actually stretches now. Take a minute for this chart below to blow your mind a little.
Yeah, I know, it is shocking isn’t it! Facebook has almost 3 billion people on its platform. A platform we log on to most days not realizing its power. That power is what I want to talk about today and how you can use these platforms to your benefit rather than being just another lemming user.
This article is going to help you take control over these platforms to help benefit your personal, professional, and social life. The narrative around social media is growing worse for a variety of reasons, but I am here to help offer a different opinion. Take the opportunity to use these platforms as they were intended to be used.
Do a Self-Check
In the words of my kindergarten teacher girlfriend, do a self-check. Think about the ways you use social media right now. Are you utilizing all of its capabilities? Are you that person who never posts anything and just logs on to see what other people are up to? Do you constantly comment on other people’s posts? Or maybe you post fifteen times a day and interact with every post you see. What kind of social media user are you?
If you are like me, you are fascinated by all the ways in which social media has grown from the simple algorithm of, your friends make a post, you like the post, and vice versa, over and over again. The whole concept of influencers has emerged from social media in the last few years, people being able to make money and get free stuff from cool brands simply by the way they use Instagram and other platforms.
Make a checklist of everything you want to be doing on social media, on each of the platforms you currently use. Keep this list as we go through the article as a way to start work-shopping ideas for ways you can elevate your social media game.
Ways to Leverage
1. Resources for Learning
We all know that Google has the answers to most of our questions we pop into the search bar. A lot of us, however, forget how useful social media can be for learning. This can be learning a new skill, studying a specific subject in school, or joining a community/group in a field you are interested in.
Below I am going to put a bulleted list of learning resources on social media that I think are overlooked. These work for all fields of learning; all you need to do is insert the subject you are wanting to learn more about.
- Twitter Threads
- LinkedIn Learning Courses
- Instagram Infographic Pages
- YouTube/Snapchat personalities
- Facebook groups
All of these resources above, if used correctly, can be a great way for you to spend your time while on these applications. Social media is not just for photos anymore, it is a great place to educate yourself. A lot of the time it is way easier and more time efficient to learn how to do something from YouTube, than it is to read a book on the subject. Just the other day I was learning how to hang something using a molly bolt. Instead of calling someone to ask, or reading an instructional article, I looked up a tutorial video on YouTube and had that shelf hung in five minutes.
2. Networking Opportunities
We all know from many of my previous newsletters that LinkedIn is a great place to network for your career. Check out my previous articles below to learn more!
How to Network on LinkedIn… And Hopefully Land a Job
LinkedIn 101: Everything You Should Be Doing on LinkedIn to Grow Your Personal Brand
Most of us do not truly know how powerful other social medias can be for networking. Twitter and Instagram specifically are great platforms to grow your personal brand, and even your professional career.
We have seen the rise in networking on those two platforms in this digital age, so now it is your time to utilize it. I use Twitter as a way to connect and grow in the newsletter/podcast space. I reply to other people’s tweets that ask questions or ask you to share something interesting. I start my own threads to try and spark conversation, and I use the Like and Retweet features. Use the strategy of following people in your field or work or that you find interesting, then quote tweet, retweet, and reply to tweets you see as a way to network with everyone following these posts.
You will be surprised how many people you can network with on Twitter as it is growing its networking capabilities each year.
Another great way to network on social media is through Facebook groups. There are curated groups based on specific topics or interests. A lot of you know these are out there but have not taken that step of actually joining one. I would encourage those that find themselves comfortable on Facebook to try this platform for a chance to connect and network with others. If you are thinking, “there is no way there is a group for the very specific topic I am interested in.” I am here to tell you, strangely enough, there seriously is a group for everything. You just have to go out and find it!
3. Marketing Your Side Hustle
Do you have a business you started? Are you trying to gain traction, get more followers, or convert more customers? Social media is the best resource for all of those things in today’s world.
Think of social media as the new cold calling for business. You can build out pages dedicated to your side hustle to update all of your followers as you grow over time. There is no better place in today’s economy to grow something like this. I don’t even know what I would suggest as the second-best way to grow your brand.
The best tip I can give for this section is to do research on competitors or similar businesses in your market and grab inspiration from their social media pages. Look out for the following below to help build out a social media plan:
- Highest engagement posts (Likes/Comments)
- Creative marketing
- Different types of posts (infographics, photos, videos, gifs)
- Layout of pages
- Any other best practices
Maybe in a future article I will break down how I use social media to leverage this newsletter! Check out the Instagram page below and give it a follow if you haven’t already! Let me know if breaking down the growth process for this newsletter would be an interesting topic to read about in a future newsletter!
4. Personal Branding
This is all about being yourself. Not posting what you think people want, but truly posting what you want and configuring your personal brand that way. This might lead to fewer likes or engagement overall, but it will lead to showing your true, authentic self, which is what people really love. As time goes on, you will discover you have a more loyal and engaged following, which then in turn will lead to more growth.
After you start doing this you will start to notice over time that you are building an audience of people that are actually focused on your pages/businesses content.
Try not to get wrapped into posting what you think people want to see, because then you will not stand out. Focus on developing your voice and your image the way you want to be featured on social media.
5. Showing off Your Hobby
Do you like to paint? Do you enjoy researching stocks? Do you enjoy eating at cool restaurants? All of those things are hobbies you can create a social media page around! Not everything needs to be turned into a business.
Everyone has their “thing” as I call it. That thing you might not always share but wish you could build an entire page around. Well, here is your calling to start it. This will not only be fun for you, but will help build your personal brand, network, and actually use social media the way it was designed to be used. All of those things sound good, right?
Go ahead and start those pages and thank me later when you see how they can benefit your social media presence!
This is Only the Beginning
When you read this article, I hope you had a lot of ideas come to your head about where to go from here. Hopefully, they are ideas you are going to act on. I wanted to give everyone a big list of ideas on ways you can use social media.
We are all stuck using social media in a singular way. There are so many possibilities out there on how to switch it up. These five new ways to use social media are just the beginning! Social media has been around for almost two decades now and I am sure we all know it is not going away any time soon. It is never too late to start branding yourself and your business!
Let me know in the comments which topic you want to explore more so we can explore these topics more!
Cheers!
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