A lot of participants in my communication skills workshop approach me saying that they understand that they should engage in social media, but they don't know how and where to start from. It is a common phenomenon and for this I would like to share with you this quick 5 points guide:

Choose your target readers:
This is the first and the most important step. When engaging in social media, you have to know who you are writing to. Once you define your target readership, you have to also define your topics.
Don’t limit yourself to a topic if you feel that it doesn’t really express what you want to say; you can have a line of correlated topics. For example: Business, economy, sustainability and leadership. As you notice, all those topics are of interest for a common target group.

Enjoy the process:
If you post or tweet topics for the sake of engaging and treat it as a duty, you will neither have fun nor be innovative. Tweet or post something you are passionate about, that way you will be able to be innovative and provide value for your readers.

Provide value:
As I have mentioned in the previous point, you have to be innovative with your content. There is a very thin line between, providing value in your content and writing content in the aim of selling your products or services. So for this reason, share your content with the intent to help others.
If you engage your audience with value, they will automatically consider you as an authority and hence will directly recommend your products and services.

Be an authority:
When you decide on your target readers and line of topics, try to keep yourself informed with the latest news and ideas about that topic. Select trade papers or websites that can provide value and choose very wisely the article you want to publish while quoting the source. The idea here is to get people to come to you anytime they have a question related to your topic.

Be consistent:
Once you have worked towards becoming an authority, make sure that your message is consistent in its content across different channels. You should make sure that your posts do not negate previous posts, and if you are trying to get an idea across, find several sources to support it. Most importantly, avoid anything that will hurt the image of your brand. I saw some life/leadership coaches that keep on posting negative comments on their Facebook page; this creates “message inconsistency” and will not only harm your online presence, but will also affect your offline reputation.

Camil El Khoury