In our last post, we talked about the trouble that many brands face online. Social streams can get easily lost in the rivers of content being produced by a world full of socially active brands and individuals.

Think about it this way: imagine you make and sell widgets. Your conversation with your stream may be all about how YOUR widgets could benefit your target clients. That’s great. You have a defined audience. How about the hundred other widget producers having the same conversations? Or those folks extolling the virtues of widgets in general? Or those who are decidedly anti-widget? You can easily see how your social stream can get diluted in the ocean of content that’s being produced on a regular basis. So, what’s a content producer to do?

Keep the Conversation Going

Consistency is one part of the key to staying socially relevant. Hit and miss posting just serves to lose your audience. Make sure that you are posting on a consistent basis to your chosen platforms. This will help your audience learn to depend on you for regular updates, info, and more. Most people will tend to follow those brands who post on a consistent basis.

Find and Establish Your Voice

Have you noticed how hard it is to maintain a conversation when you add more and more speakers? This holds true socially as well. When establishing the voice of your brand make sure to limit the number of folks adding to that conversation. People will quickly become confused when you change voices on a regular basis, so keeping a consistent voice for your chosen platform can help prevent this.

Keep It Relevant

The topics you cover MUST be relevant to your chosen audience. People looking to buy widgets for their house are not going to want to hear about how widgets are great for their business. When you start a conversation that has no bearing on your audience, you will lose ground. Make sure you are addressing your topics concerning your brand from a perspective that is relevant to your target audience. This also means engaging them in ways that are relevant to their tastes and habits. Some audiences may respond better to image-based posts. Some may prefer blog conversations. Some may prefer short tweets or longer Facebook posts. No matter which method, make sure you are reaching them in that manner.

Sales vs. Having a Conversation

This shouldn’t be a necessary conversation in and of itself, but we’d be in the wrong if we don’t point this out. While your goal may be to increase sales, overpromoting is a quick way to kill a conversation. Nobody wants to have sales pushed in their faces constantly. Make promoting your goods and services part of your social stream, but keep it light. You’ll find it much easier to keep your audience engaged. Try the 80/20 approach to social media content!

Goal + Strategy = Results

It would be so much easier if we could go into a social conversation just like any other, but unfortunately, this isn’t so. First, you should come up with a well-defined goal. Are you looking to increase awareness? Do you want to drive more traffic to your website? Make sure you lay out this goal in such a way that you’ll be able to identify workable steps that will help address your overall goal. These steps will form the basis for the social strategy that will help drive your results.

If you are hitting on all these cylinders you’ll find that it could make it much easier to keep your social stream from getting lost in the ocean of content that’s available on our increasingly busy social networks.