Our Guide to Becoming a Social Media Success:

1. Have a Passion

It really doesn't matter what you want to post about, there will always be an audience for you if you are truly passionate about what you want to do. As long as you think you'll have enough material to be able to post on a scheduled basis, (which we will get into later on) then you'll do just fine! People want to know that you're into your topic as much as they are, so use adjectives and positive words when promoting your page. 

2. Choose the Best Platform for You

Depending on what you want to do will depend on which platforms will work best for you. If you want to post about something tactile, like our tea page, Instagram is your best choice. You will be able to easily take photos of your topic and posting is quick and easy! If you want to post chatty, informal articles, then Twitter or Facebook will lend themselves well to you. They both allow you to post to large audiences and support the use of hashtags, which will get you trending much quicker than any other site. If you want to post formal articles about your topic, setting up a Blogspot page or a Wordpress page will be the best way to do this. These sites allow you to format articles in a really effective way, producing a professional result - however, you may want to employ other platforms to promote your blog, such as Bloglovin'. Finally, if your topic would come across more effectively in a video format, then youtube is the way to go! It's a fast and simple process which will get your content seen by a very wide audience.

3. Don't be Too Ambitious!

You don't want to run out of material on the first day, by posting everything you can think of in the first hour of your page being online. Sort out a schedule of when you want to post, whether that's daily, weekly or bi-weekly (any longer and you won't pick up followers as effectively). Also, don't expect to have 100 likes and 500 followers in the first month; create little milestones and be happy with whatever progress comes out of it! Always remember, with a blog - quality is much better than quantity - people want good articles, not lots of articles. On the other hand, Instagram pages react better to consistently good photographs - posting every day or every other day if you can!

4. Follow Similar Pages for Inspiration 

By following pages that are doing the same thing as you, you can grow from their ideas! They've already done the hard part, so you can see how often they post or what they put in their captions for example, and learn from what you find out. If these pages also follow you back then why not suggest doing a shout out for a shout out? Post about their page in a post and they'll do the same for you - you both gain followers from it, so its a win win. Why not reach out to the existing followers of said pages too? You'll know that they like that topic and will be likely to follow you back if you're producing similar content.

5. Be Active and Responsive

Once you have built your fan base, make sure to consistently reply to comments on your posts and comment on other creators posts! A great way to get your content moving is by making friends with your fellow creators - they are not competitors, they are your friends - use them to boost your content to their audience as well as yours. Really, once you have gained the followers, it's all about keeping them coming back, so be interesting!! Mix things up every now and then. Perhaps create a segment, like 'film review Fridays' or 'tea tasting Fuesdays' or 'Harry Potter Saturdays', anything to keep your followers coming back again, and again. 

Just remember, you've got to love what you're doing. If you're finding that it's having a negative effect on your life or preventing you from doing things - stop. Don't think that being successful on social media is everything, it should just be for fun! Don't let it rule your life. So go out, create your blogs, channels, pages, twitters and everything else in-between and LOVE IT, LIVE IT, WORK IT!

 ~ and make sure to tag us ;) ~