You’ll often hear that social media is about more than just posting: you have to do a lot of outreach to get your audience engaged. But what does that mean? What does outreach look like for each social media platform?

We’re here to break it down for you!

First, let’s understand the difference between “engagement” and “outreach.” Engagement on social media means that your audience is engaging your posts: liking it, reacting to it, sharing it. Outreach is your actions: you’re doing the liking, the sharing, and/or the reacting. So now let’s get into each platform.

 Facebook:

1. Like and follow (remember those are separate!) pages and people that are in line with your brand and/or fans
2. React, comment, and share other people’s posts
3. Properly tag pages! Either in your caption, on your photo, or in a comment. You can give credit to a photographer this way or gain a popualr page’s attention! Long gone are the days of only tagging someone who is actually in the photo.

 Instagram:

1. Like, comment, and repost! Reposting is simple with the Repost App
2. Tag your photos! Similarly to Facebook, you can tag in the caption, on your photo, or in a comment. Again, give credit, or gain a popular influencer’s attention by tagging it!

Twitter:

1. Follow people/businesses that are in line with your brand
2. Like, retweet, and comment on Tweets
3. Tag your tweets!If you mention a brand or person, make sure to tag them.

 Google+:

• Follow people/businesses that are in line with your brand
• Like, comment, and share other users’ posts
• Create collections and post in them! This is a great way to be more specific with your posts and appeal to certain Google+ users
• Post in communities! Communities are exactly how they sound: a community of Google+ users with a common interest. Just make sure your post is relevant, otherwise you can be blocked from a community.

 LinkedIn:

• Connect with other businesses/professionals in like with your business
• Like, comment, and share other users’ post.

It may seem like a lot to do for each social media platform, but think of it all as one big online community and you’re just catching up with old friends and making new ones. Perform this outreach and your followers and engagement are sure to grow.

If you feel that you could use some help with your brand’s social media marketing, the team at BSG has the experience to develop effective and organized social media strategies and manage social platforms properly for businesses of all types. Contact us today to learn more about what we can do for you.