Creating Effective Social Media – 5 Easy Steps to Creating Social Media That Reaches Your Target

Effectively creating a social media presence is not as hard as it seems. Use five easy steps to improve your online presence now.

1) Know your target audience: You know your customer (or you should) – that’s your audience. All audiences have diversity: age, economic background, style, and interest areas. Now, when you create content, do it as if you are directly speaking to them. Start a conversation. Spark your target’s imagination. Use humor and remember that being too formal can seem inauthentic. Don’t forget to be online with your audience. Explore what they talk about, what they like, what they share, what they hashtag. Interact to get to know them. Tip: use hashtags to research the climate around a topic and see what’s trending.

2) Intentionally set boundaries: After you have visualized your target audience you will need to set up “Go” and “No-Go” areas for your content. These parameters are simplistic yet, paramount. Setting social media boundaries will help you keep your target group happy. Your goal is to create content that is professional and pleasing to your audience. Remember, what is appropriate for one audience, may not be relevant for another. Areas to carefully consider: politics, profanity, slang verbiage, etc.

3) Find a graphics tools that work for you: Creating graphics will serve you well, as visuals are an integral part of all social media platforms. Even Twitter is now more visually based; they have made it easier than ever to share graphics and animated gifts, right at the point of creation. You can put your best visual foot forward by utilizing any purchased, or free, graphic software like Adobe Suite (purchased) or Pixler (free). You will want to research which programs work best with your skill level; there are many online to explore.

4) Consider your platform: Create visual content with limited text, to show/say something significant and inspirational. Know what rules apply to the platform you are using. For example, Twitter limits you to 140 characters or less. These rules will shape your content. Research platform parameters online to familiarize yourself with each structure.

5) Use color: Don’t forget to utilize color; it draws the eye! You can also create a theme of colors that you will use to represent your brand. Using colors enhances what someone feels, for example, Greens and Blues are said to create trust and a fresh feeling, while yellows, reds, and oranges are said to excite, or even make the viewer hungry (think fast food chains). Create content that welcomes your audience to take a closer look. Tip: add your logo to most of the content you create.

By using the five steps above: knowing your audience, setting boundaries, optimizing graphics, mastering platforms, and through utilizing color, you are well on your way to creating social media that effectively reaches your target.


Stephanie Newby is the owner of Newgreenie Inc, an Entrepreneur, Writer, Current Graduate Student and Social Media Enthusiast. Webmasters and other article publishers are hereby granted article reproduction permission if this article is shared in its entirety, author’s information, and any links remain intact. Copyright 2017 by Stephanie Newby, Newgreenie Inc. newgreenie.com

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The Power of Resonance in Entrepreneurship

The concept of Emotional Intelligence (EI) has garnered a lot of attention in recent years, especially in relation to developing and maintaining successful businesses. Over time, the definition of emotional intelligence has changed, but the core values have remained consistent. According to the Mayer-Salovey-Caruso Emotional Intelligence Test (MSCEIT), emotional intelligence encompasses four key strengths (Humphrey, 2013):

  • Perceiving emotions accurately
  • Using emotion to facilitate thought
  • Understanding emotion
  • Managing emotion (Humphrey, 2013).

Since entrepreneurship involves a significant amount of risk, negation, and collaboration, harnessing EI competencies allows innovators to navigate this process more effectively and improve the likelihood for success. Entrepreneurs who can harness these intelligences to transform their innovations and motivate their constituents can more easily create the resonance needed to give their idea momentum.

When a leader can perceive and understand the emotions of others accurately and objectively, they create a strong groundwork for identifying with their constituents, and what motivates their values and beliefs. Through awareness of emotions, and a genuine understanding of their source, entrepreneurs can harness the power of emotional intelligence to breed familiarity, trust and support amongst individuals in their organization. A detached leader will eventually lose the support of his or her constituents, as they may gradually start to believe that their organization values profit over people, and lacks a personal understanding of the values and beliefs which drive these emotions.

Receiving honest feedback, while potentially difficult to ingest, provides a strong basis for change in an organization. Emotionally intelligent entrepreneurs use this feedback to facilitate new ways of thinking about their idea, thereby improving the collective creativity and problem-solving within their organization. When a leader can successfully transform feedback into action, he or she instills a feeling of mutual support, genuine concern and desire for action in others. This opens the pathway for continuous feedback from employees and partners, improving the overall success and momentum of an innovation or business endeavor. It also further strengthens an innovator’s ability to handle challenging negotiations or close gaps in performance within their organization, as they have a clearer idea of the source of these problems. Along these lines, transformative leadership improves an organization’s ability to foster personal and professional development, leading to greater job-satisfaction amongst employees. Similarly, the transformation of emotion into productive thought and planning instills confidence amongst investors and stakeholders, improving the innovation’s viability and likelihood for future success.

Most importantly, successful leaders should seek to manage their own emotions effectively. Entrepreneurs face many challenges through the process of innovation, and a leader who is easily derailed at the sight of a roadblock or challenge will struggle to maintain the progress of the endeavor. Leaders set an example through their behavior, and have a great amount of influence over the “tone” within their organization. Uncontrolled emotional responses amongst leadership can lead to increased workplace stress, decreased job satisfaction and productivity, and unexpected business failure. It can also discourage honest feedback or creative problem-solving amongst constituents, which hampers success, since entrepreneurs rely heavily on constituents to influence change, and develop and manifest ideas. Emotional control and a maintaining a constructive emotional response becomes critical for entrepreneurs. Ultimately, it allows innovators to more effectively interface with executors –  the individuals responsible for launching and developing the strategies which make a venture successful.

The process of innovating can be daunting, and endlessly challenging without the use of emotional intelligence competencies. Leaders can employ these competencies to develop better business strategies, align values within their organization, and inspire collaboration with stakeholders and constituents alike. As discussed, emotional intelligence paves the path to resonance, a growing concept in entrepreneurial and organizational success. It takes a dynamic individual to come up with a new idea, but an emotionally intelligent leader to transform that idea into a successful innovation.

Source:

Humphry, Ronald H. (2013). The benefits of emotional intelligence and empathy to entrepreneurship. Special Issue – A New Business Model: The    Emotional Dimension of Organizations, 3(3): 287-294. doi: 10.1515/erj-2013-0057.

Zakarevicius, P. & Zuperka, A. (2010). Expression of emotional intelligence in development of students’ entrepreneurship. Economics & Management, p. 865-873.

Jeanette Neuner is an entrepreneur, artist and thinker and is currently enrolled in the Masters of Business Administration program at Western Carolina University. Webmasters and other article publishers are hereby granted article reproduction permission as long as this article in its entirety, author’s information, and any links remain intact. Copyright 2017 by Jeanette Neuner.  

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