It is important to first familiarize yourself with your own target group and the characteristics of the different platforms.

Gather information you need about target audiences you are going to target by using the tools that social media channels provide and gain insights about your collected audiences and how they behave through filtering. The information obtained provides insight and forms a good basis for the description of the people you are targeting. These insights also provide important information about subsequent interactions. Then research which content can be successful per action and use this knowledge to produce future messages.

Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn have been leading Social Media for years.

Your specific content consists of various forms of information that is interesting to be shared with others. It is a wide spectrum of information, obtainable through all kinds of channels such as e-mail newsletters to photos on Facebook and videos on YouTube.

On social media, people expect your own story the story about your unique service or services; your story. By means of your story you create a feeling about your service or product that evokes a signal, emotion. A story captures the imagination of your target audience and is remembered better than flat data. Support your story as much as possible with tangible visual content. By telling your own story you increase recognisability, you can bind people together, entice people and take action until CTA is [call to action]. Feed your own story for a complete and constant experience and find your target group.

Now that it's clear who your target audiences are, where they are and what content they expect, it can be difficult to start creating content. A content calendar offers the solution. Here you make a clear schedule in which you include different topics and types of content per social media channel. Fortunately, most social media channels offer the possibility to plan content ahead. This way you build up a buffer and prevent the risk of running out of content. Another handy tool that can help you with this is Buffer. With this you can easily connect all your social media channels within one platform and you can easily plan content in advance by date and time.

Your target audience would like to learn more about products and services. Regular posts through your social media channels make your target audience aware of your existence and arouse their interest. Therefore, regularly send a message or photo at least once a week.

The main goal you want to achieve with your social media channels is interaction with your target group. What moves them, what do they think about and what do they want from you? To find out, you'll need to create content that provokes engagement. Share interesting facts, tips and ask for the opinion of your followers. Always enrich your content with relevant visual material.

People get bored quickly. Due to the large amount of content that can be found today, people are less likely to be impressed. To prevent your messages from going unnoticed, you can alternate by mixing different types of content. For example, use video or even live video, infographics, cinemagraphs (a photo in which a part moves), quotes, case studies and white papers. Be creative with your content, this will make you stand out and stay interesting.

Interacting with your target audience is the main goal of social media, generated information and content is worth a lot. Every day thousands of messages are shared by millions of social media users in the Netherlands alone. Why not respond smartly by getting your followers involved with your company or your product. Request interaction from your followers by, for example, offering them a discount or create a hashtag especially for this. This lowers the threshold and easily generates involvement for your brand or product.