Social media is crucial when it comes to increasing your online credibility, and a lot is said about successful social media strategies: there’s no such thing as over-posting… respond to each comment… talk about everything to gain more followers… In other words, engage. Although all of these ideas are significant, the most important social media tactics to increase online credibility aren’t related to community engagement in the literal sense.
Narrowing your focus by creating hashtags for your social media content increases online credibility. Hashtags are used to search terms in a post and to group posts to similar topics. Keep in mind the fewer hashtags you use in a post, the better. #Overusing #hashtags #for #every #keyword #can #result #in #your #content #looking #like #spam. Not to mention, every word in your content is actually a search term online. But remember, the use of hashtags varies depending on the social media platform. For example, Twitter started hashtags and generally uses them to search and share information. Facebook, on the other hand, recently enabled hashtags, but they are used for more humorous purposes than they are used for searching/grouping purposes.
Social media and SEO go hand-in-hand. The more followers you have on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn—you name it—the more opportunities you create to share your content and build buzz around your brand. As a result, linking your social media sites to your brand’s site and creating share buttons for your content make it easier for people to not only view and pass on your information but also increase your SEO search and online credibility.
There is one thing that is more important than hashtags and linking and that’s consistency. When it comes to effective social media use, consistency seems harder to accomplish than anything else. It doesn’t mean you have to post 10 pieces of content every day, but if you want to be a credible online source you must post content regularly. However, it’s hard to be consistent with the plethora of social media platforms available these days. The first piece of advice: Every social media platform isn’t necessarily for you. Take the time to research and understand what platforms might be better for your brand before diving into everything. Second, if you do use multiple social media platforms consider creating a timetable for your content with Hootsuite. Hootsuite is a scheduled posting site that allows you to manage and post content to your various social media sites. In essence, it makes your social media life so much easier.
Online credibility isn’t about getting the most likes, retweets, and comments through social media tools. It’s about generating quality, relevant content that benefits and engages the reader through digital platforms.