By Darren Gilbert

This is because they are unsure of how to build a presence that will resonate with an audience. Fortunately, this doesn’t have to be the case. With that in mind, here are a few things that you need to keep in mind when building a solid social media presence for your business.

Put in the legwork

It would be great to create a profile on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram and have people follow you without you doing anything. However, that is never going to happen – at least not legally anyway. No, in order for this to happen, you have to put in the hard work.

Ann Tran, a contributor to Entrepreneur explains: “To me, social media is almost a round-the-clock enterprise. It takes me hours to read and gather tweets each day to share across my network.” While it’s not hard work, you can expect it to be quick. Nothing quick and easy is worth pursuing.

“Over the years, I have been even more selective, which makes it even harder for me to take on this particular task and this is just a fraction of my social-media undertaking for each day.” If you want to build a presence online, you have to consider the effort it takes to develop and cultivate a following.

Don’t oversell yourself

The idea of providing content and cultivating a community is paramount to developing a solid presence. However, you need to look closer at the content that you push out. It needs to be the type of content that people want to share and engage with.

It’s a point which Shawn Porat, CEO of Fortune Cook Advertising agrees with. He writes on Forbes.com, “One of the biggest mistakes made by businesses on social media sites is spending too much time selling and hyping their products. Remember that people spend time on sites like Facebook mostly for socializing and entertainment.”

At the same time, in using your social media channels, you need to think more about your audience than yourself. As Porat continues: “If your page and updates are mostly links to sales pages or simply telling everybody how great you are, they will quickly tire of it.”

Be consistent in what you do

In order to build familiarity and thus a relationship with people, you need to be around them. The same goes for social media. To build a solid social media presence, you need to be consistent in your actions.

So, for example, if you want to tweet, do it every day. If you want to post on Facebook, set a schedule. As Rachel Catlett, a contributor to Business 2 Community points out, “consistency is important on social media”.

“Everyone who contributes to your business’s social media presence needs to take the time to understand what sort of voice should be used when posting for your business,” continues Catlett. “Plus, it’s important to establish a regular cadence for your posts – at least once a week is recommended, but daily posts will build more engagements and help better grow your presence.”

What are your thoughts? Do you know of any other ways to build a solid social media presence for your business? Tell us below.