Why is it important to post consistently on social media?

You have spent countless hours bringing your social media page to life; heaps of eye-catching photos and meaningful descriptions. Job done, right? So why is it, it has been several days and there is no activity? The answer is simple – consistency. It does not matter how much time you have invested in producing a clean, exciting social media page, if you do not spend time consistently interacting, you will not gain the traffic. In fact, creating the page is only half the battle. That friendly, loyal audience that you are waiting for comes from time, patience and constant interaction.

Many people think that running a social media page is easy and only requires the ability to occasionally post something relevant to you, your brand or your service, but that simply is not the case. It takes persistence, it takes a friendly approach, a big smile and constant desire to communicate with your intended audience. With a combination of regular, relevant, high-quality content and constant interaction between you and your audience, you can expect to see your audience organically grow. Consistency is very easy to achieve, as long as you know how and once you understand how to accomplish it and why you need to do so, you will see genuine, positive results.

Regular, High-Quality Content

Looking after your social media page is not too different from looking after your friends and family; it takes patience and investment of time, effort and energy, and without this, you cannot expect the relationship to blossom. You must see your followers in the same light. If you take care of them, they will take care of you. When somebody follows you, they do so because they enjoy your content, they enjoy what you stand for, what you are offering and what you have the potential to offer, but if you greet that loyalty with silence, your audience will get bored and seek their content from more active, consistent sources.

You need to be constantly thinking about what you are posting next. You need to be considering what your audience wants. Do you need to consider current events? Are things changing? Should you be updating them on things? Are you using the correct photos? Are you saying just enough without saying too much? There are so many things to think about, but crucially, your followers don’t expect perfection. They expect honest care and attention. There is, of course, a fine line to balance, and sometimes this can be hard to achieve but if you stand beside your followers rather than leaving them out in the cold, your reception will be far warmer.

It is important to note that social media algorithms can work in your favour if you know how to utilise them. By ensuring your posts are frequent, high-quality and non-offensive, you increase the chances of your content being recognised. Many algorithms run off the concept of post-interaction. The more people that see your post, the more people talk about your post, the more you talk to them, the more likely it is that your post will rise in the ranks, giving your page the attention you were looking for in the first place. If you go quiet, you can expect platforms such as Facebook and Instagram to allow your posts to quietly sit in the background.

Presenting the Right Image

Social media plays a dominant role in the lives of so many people. Whether they are looking to keep in touch with friends, check out the latest news or seek solace in funny cat videos, there are constant chances of gaining a view, a like or a follow, but in an incredibly saturated market, you need to convince them that you are the one that deserves their like. Quite simply – you need to present the correct image. You need to stand out from the crowd, represent something relatable to people and keep them wanting more.

If you fail to post frequent, high-quality content, people will question your commitment, and if you don’t care, why would they? They need to engage with someone that is proud of what they are offering, friendly, constant and gives them exactly what they want without forcing their agenda. Finding that balance can often be difficult, but listen to your audience, learn what it is that makes them tick and

keep on showing them that you have something to offer them.

Quite often, the internet is the realistic representation of you, your business or your product and therefore you must create the narrative that you want to be associated with. If a customer walked into your store, you wouldn’t tell them that you are not going to serve them at that time because you have other things to be doing, so why should it be any different over social media? You need to be present for your audience, you need to be approachable and you need to be able to balance selling your product without making it a high-pressure situation. You need to be constantly monitoring your page, responding to questions, showing your audience that you care.

Building a Consistent Platform

There are countless ways that you can build consistency on your social media page, and with consistency comes followers, which ultimately is what you are trying to do.

A fantastic way to control consistency on your page is by creating a simple content calendar. Note down which days of the week you are going to post content, and which type of content you want to post. You don’t want to post the same things day in, day out so mix up your content with product pitches, current news that is relevant to your content and helpful, relevant facts and figures. Keep to schedule and consistency is a given.

In a similar vein, when you develop a schedule in this manner, you need to be realistic and ensure it accurately reflects what you can provide for the page. Don’t set yourself sky-high goals if you cannot commit to it. Don’t plan to post five times a day if you know that you can only devote a small portion of your time to doing so. It is better, to be honest about your capabilities and anything more becomes a bonus. Do not take this as a free pass to neglect your audience though, you definitely need to make sure you post regularly or you cannot expect consistency.

Running a social media page isn’t as simple as posting what you want when you want. It is important to ensure that you post when you planned, it keeps in line with the schedules you are adopting and does not venture into unknown territory. If prioritising your time is something you do not find easy, there is a multitude of posting tools available that you can take advantage of. If you know that you cannot post at 3 pm that day because you have an otherwise important business meeting, utilise tools such as Buffer and Hootsuite which will automatically post your content at the time you require.

Another great way to build consistency is through making the most of live video/story capabilities available on social media websites. If you have a spare few minutes, get onto your story, show your audience what you are working on, and how it can benefit them. Give them a reason to keep their eyes peeled for what’s to come.

Don’t Forget to Talk

Once you have nailed consistent posting, you need to really focus on interaction. If you allow your messages to fill up and don’t respond to them, you will soon find people losing interest and that is the last thing that you want. You have to put constant effort into communicating with your audience, whether that is responding to the comments they post on your posts, or responding to personally inboxed questions, the more care and attention you show to them, the more care and attention they will show to you. After all, no physical business succeeds if the customer service is poor, and this same concept applies to managing your social media pages.

Consistency can be frustrating, but it is incredibly important to successfully run your page.