If there's one thing I could tell my clients and other business owners when it comes to social media, it's this:  

Social media wasn't built for you to plaster your business logo everywhere you can, spam your friends and family to like your business page, and ask them to tell everyone they know about your page. 

It was made to be a social platform, to create a space people can use to connect with their community, friends, and family.

DIFFERENT PLATFORM, DIFFERENT PURPOSE

How do people engage on each platform?  On Facebook, people like each other's statuses, pictures, and share videos.  

On Instagram, beautiful, high-definition, photos tell a cohesive story for its users. 

You need to respect the platform you're using, and most of all respect its users by understanding how they communicate and tell their stories.

Don't half-ass one for the other, either.  I'm so tired of seeing people post their photos from Instagram to Facebook and vice versa because they don't see the value of creating photos that speak to the users of each platform.  

When companies do this, it drives me nuts.  They might as well be advertising that they don't care about anyone they're trying to reach out to on the platform, and that they're really only in it for themselves. They add no value to the community whatsoever.

Phew! Let me catch my breath.  This topic always fires me up.

VALUE, VALUE, VALUE

Think about what value you can provide to the community you're speaking to.  

Why should they care about you? Give them a reason to.  

When you're first priority is to be of service and provide exceptional value to your audience, that's when real engagement and relationships happen.  When you give, give, give, and give some more, you'll be in a position to sell your services or products.

The smartest businesses use social media to create conversations and tell stories.  If you consistently put yourself in the shoes of your audience and think about what they need, you will always have success using it.

If you're reading this, you're one step ahead of your competition, so get out there and make your business stand out from what everyone else is doing. 

If you want to read some absolutely amazing stuff on this, take a look at "Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook" by Gary Vaynerchuk.  He's an absolute badass when it comes to creating engagement and telling your story in a real way using social media.  

I could not put this book down once I started and read it in less than 2 days.  I highly recommend it to anyone who is invested in making their social media presence successful and worthwhile.

Cheers to not being like the rest,
Katie