On this week’s episode of SUCCESS Line, I talk to a very special guest and member of the SUCCESS family: Madison Pieper, host of SUCCESS Stories. Madison also manages all of the social assets for SUCCESS. Overseeing accounts with a reach of 4.5 million people is no small task, and Madison has learned a thing or two about how to excel in the overwhelming world of social media along the way.
So this week, I asked Madison on the show to pick her brain about a question that has come up time and time again on the SUCCESS Line: How do we achieve maximum impact on our social media channels?
If you’ve been asking yourself this question, too, read on for Madison’s top five tips to developing a successful online brand identity.
1. Find your fit.
Madison’s first piece of advice was an important one: If you are looking to develop your brand identity, you cannot try to do everything and be everywhere at once. You will become a jack of all trades and a master of none.
Instead, you need to find your fit. What is your brand’s personality and where will it resonate most deeply? Who is your target audience and where do they spend most of their time? What keeps your audience up at night as they scroll through their feed?
Do not throw out a cluster of content that makes no sense. Identify where your brand fits and make that content and platform your priority. You can go on to repurpose that content for other platforms (which we will get into down below), but you should prioritize the site you are getting the most engagement on and, hopefully, having the most fun.
2. Build relationships.
Recently, I worked with a client who was consistently putting out great content but felt they weren’t getting results. As I went through their content, I noticed something: They were getting tons of comments from followers but there was not one single comment in response from their brand. There were customers literally knocking on their door wanting to start a conversation, and all the customers heard in response were crickets.
Madison put it bluntly: “If you don’t build a relationship with your audience, there is no point to your social media presence.”
And you can’t build a relationship with your audience if you don’t talk to them. Utilize the tools available such as Instagram polls, question boxes and quizzes to ask them what they would like to see more or less of. Bring something to the table beyond the product or brand you are trying to sell and actually start an ongoing conversation.
People don’t buy from a company, they buy from a person. And the beauty of social media is that we can now put a face to our company and create relationships in ways we never could before. But it only works if it is a two-way street. Take the time to engage with your audience and make them feel heard—otherwise you might as well not post anything at all.
3. Make a plan.
As 2022 looms, many entrepreneurs will start the year full of energy on social media. But though they might post two or three times, they will quickly lose steam if they don’t have a plan.
In order to show up on social media consistently (a key component to developing your brand identity), you need to take the time to plan your content. And you should plan it for the entire next year. Think through what you want your audience to take away from your content and use that as a springboard to strategically plan and schedule your year.
Now, adaptability within your plan will be key—the life of an entrepreneur is anything but predictable. “Write your plans in pencil,” Madison suggests.
2022 awaits—get out your pencil and start planning today.
4. Repurpose your content.
Good news: You don’t need to create unique content for each platform. You can use the content that you do well and then repurpose that content for other platforms.
For example, if your passion project is your podcast, there are a variety of ways to reuse it:
- Transcribe the podcast into a blog post.
- Record video of the conversation for YouTube.
- Take the best 30 seconds of video and post it on Reels and TikTok.
- Turn a quote from the conversation into a post on Instagram.
Now you’ve hit every single platform with only one content piece. Your message stays exactly the same, but you’ve tailored the method of delivery to each unique platform. Remember, you don’t have to do everything. Take what you’re best at and repurpose it for everything else.
5. Stay open.
Finally, stay open. Do not close yourself to opportunity because of assumptions you’ve made or because you are comfortable where you are.
If we know one thing to be true about social media it is that it is always changing. The newest thing is forever yet to come, and you never know when one of your most popular platforms will end entirely. Stay agile, pay attention, and be open to the changes, trends and disruptions that might come our way over the coming years.
And if you’re not on TikTok because you still think it is only for dancing teenagers, well, it might be time to open the app and check it out—there is opportunity everywhere.
The SUCCESS Line is no longer releasing new episodes on the SUCCESS Podcast Network, but you can still listen to the full conversation below.
