By Tess F. Stevens

Social media is a hot topic among marketers everywhere. It seems like every day we are getting a new recommendation for algorithm changes, best practices, and do’s and don’ts. You may be thinking to yourself, “What should I post?” “How do I post it?” “Who will listen?”

It is easy to get caught up in the minute details of social media, but successful campaigns and organic success comes down to one thing: the human element of your event, product, or service.

If you can connect with your audience on a human level, relate to them, nurture them, and excite them you will have a successful post. Here are 10 ways to inject personality into your posts.

1. Examine Your Audience, Become Your Audience

Is your audience millennials? Dog lovers? Cooking fanatics? You have to meet them where they are. Study the profiles and services that they follow and use.

For instance, let’s take a look at one of our clients, Oracle NetSuite Open. Their social audience is a niche of squash players, fans, and enthusiasts. By strategic targeting and creative social presentation of match winners, we were able to bust open the door of engagement in a big way.

2. Talk Like Your Audience

All of these tips go hand in hand. If your product or service is geared toward men and women in their early- to mid-twenties, be more colloquial. Use phrases like “BTW” or “#WCW” to get points across.

Is your audience full of pet parents? Find content that works for them and talk like a pet parent. Here’s an example from our work with Pet Camp. Casual, fun, and conversational tones have allowed us to get closer to their customer base. Because dog owners call their dogs “good boys” and “good girls” why not use that logic in a social post to encourage engagement and fun.

3. Capitalize On Social Trends

What does your audience care about? Are they inclined to seek out advertisements or trends? Customers agree that nobody is looking for just another ad on social media. Why not try a trend? Connect with your audience by checking out what is popular, then make it personal.

Here’s a great example from our work with Pet Camp, taking advantage of the pet social trend of “Tongue Out Tuesday”. When you see the post, you’ll notice that we took submissions from our audience, leveraged their interest in this trending topic in the pet space, and then submitted more! Check out the comments of the post linked above to see another aspect of great social management, community engagement.

4. Get Personal

If a large world event happens that directly relates to your client, don’t hesitate to create something that further connects the event, business, or product to the community. When Sonoma, California experienced widespread fires in 2019, we were able to show our gratitude as both people and a business with a thoughtful, quickly executed graphic with a sincere message. Cut through the noise of other ads and posts with something genuine, and it will pay off.

5. Use Emoji

This one is self explanatory—emoji is becoming this generation’s hieroglyphics, symbols in place of words. We use them to say thank you, to say yes, to say no, to say you’re hungry, and pretty much everything else! Don’t hesitate to use these as assets in your social strategy. With sparing use on certain posts, it will draw the eye to your copy and help people digest important information like ticket sales or event announcements.

When we post on our Spritz social media profiles, we use emoji frequently to communicate fun and excitement. Here’s a great example.