Five Steps To Make Your Social Media Posts Stand Out

Whether you’re trying to become Instagram famous or boost your business via social media, standing out in today’s sea of content requires strategy. The opportunity to reach your target audience is there, with millions of people all over the world spending hours on popular platforms like Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, and beyond.

From beauty, wellness, and travel to fashion, food, and family, there’s no shortage of content out there, so building a presence requires some hustle.

While there is no special sauce for hitting it big on social media, there are five key strategies every successful content creator uses.

Follow these strategic tips to build a strong audience, increase engagement, and rise up the content creator ranks.

1. Identify your key content pillars and figure out your niche.

Start by deciding on three to five key themes to alternate between. What are the main kinds of content you want to share?

For example, if you’re looking to stand out in the beauty world, your pillars might be tutorial videos, selfies, product reviews, and shopping hauls.

A lifestyle creator might create a cycle of outfit, travel, food, and quote content. Food-focused creators might curate a mix of recipes, how-to videos, meal prep gadgets, and restaurant recaps. Identifying your pillars makes it easier — and less time-consuming — to build out unique content.

This is also helpful for testing; trying out different types of posts is important for figuring out what really resonates with your audience and community.

2. Plan your social media calendar.

Consistency is key on social media, and if you strike a chord with an audience, you can bet they’ll be back looking for more. Make sure you’ve got the content they’re looking for by building a social media calendar.

Creating your content ahead of time makes it easy to keep up with a set cadence, whether that’s posting daily or a few times a week. Whatever you decide, stick to it, as consistency is crucial for fostering a loyal audience.

Create your calendar in a spreadsheet and map out the next two weeks to a month (here’s where those planned pillars come in handy). Write out your copy, tags, and hashtags, plus organize your images and videos.

You can also utilize a scheduling platform to eliminate the steps of manually sharing every post. Pro tip: supplement scheduled content with real-time story content or live streams to connect with your followers organically.

3. Get high-quality images to use in your social media posts.

Your smartphone might take nice photos, but are those images good enough to bank your reputation as a content creator? In the very visual world of social media, your perfectly-crafted caption will go overlooked if you don’t pair it with strong enough imagery

Whether you’re creating YouTube videos, TikTok clips, Instagram Stories, or tweets, good photo quality tells your audience you’re a pro.

Instead of having to hire an expensive photographer or buying a pricey camera, use a great stock image service like JumpStory. 

With a JumpStory premium plan, you’ll find a range of images, icons, illustrations, and vector files across content categories from food, health, and wellness to travel, lifestyle, and people.

You won’t find any cheesy or generic photos; the platform is known for its high-performing images and is super easy to filter and search through so you can find exactly what you need every time.

4. Connect with your community regularly.

Now that your content is prepped and polished ahead of time, you can focus on connecting with your followers in real-time. Community management is a key tool in solidifying and growing your social media presence, so try to block out time every day to connect with your followers.

Take the time to read direct messages and comments. Respond in a timely manner. Comment on fellow content creators’ or businesses’ posts, especially complementary or like-minded accounts that your audience might be looking at. A “like” or emoji can go a long way for dedicated followers!

5. Track your analytics and set realistic goals.

You won’t know what’s working, or not working if you don’t keep an eye on your analytics. Add a reminder in your calendar for the first of each month to take down your metrics and KPIs.

This data is also helpful for setting realistic goals (which are crucial for growth). You might be measuring follower count, engagement rate, or how successful video versus static image content is — there are many ways to look at social, so decide what’s most important to you and take a monthly assessment of those numbers.

If you utilize a third-party platform for scheduling and posting, check what kind of metrics they track, as this could be a huge time-saver. It’s smart to add an analytics tab to your social media calendar spreadsheet for ease.