Your social media sankalpa

For those who practice yoga, you will know that it’s a tradition to step onto your mat and set an intention. An intention can be a simple word you dedicate your practice to that represents a value you’d like to bring into your life.

We also create a sankalpa – a short affirmation used to bring about positive change. It’s the short-term goal to manifesting your reality.

Over time, your actions begin to align with your intentions. When you begin to understand what you are seeking from your practice, you can see how to direct energies and actions to get there.

As I was practicing yoga recently, it occurred to me that we can also set a sankalpa for areas of business such as social media.

Rather than setting the goal of achieving 1000 followers, think about the stepping stones you can take to achieving those followers and how you can set a commitment to your followers such as providing information that adds value.

Here are some ideas for setting your sankalpa for social media.

Put your fans first

Always think about the interests of the follower first. For each self-promotional post, put up two or three non-promotional posts which are relevant to your business and audience.

Try not to create obvious posts that ask the viewer to ‘please like and share’ – it’s a sure way to turn people off. Have a conversation without begging for a response – people love posts about things they can identify with.

Curate content

Sounds simple: create and share content that’s valuable to your followers. One way to raise awareness about your brand is to link to useful content – content that your followers want to share with their friends.

The best content is something that your followers can’t get anywhere else. You can also create content on your website that can be shared, such as a whitepaper or interesting research you have discovered about your industry.

Tell your success stories

By posting success stories of how you have helped your clients or how they have benefited from what you have to offer you can promote your business indirectly. Success stories make an interesting read and at the same time demonstrate the value you offer.

This is where you can be proactive by seeking out your customers and asking them for feedback and testimonials.

Celebrating your clients is another way of building engagement and promoting your business through relationships. Many businesses are quite successful with ‘fan of the week’ or ‘fan of the month’ posts where they celebrate the fan who engaged with the page the most.

PR and media coverage

Amplify your PR. Posting media coverage is another great indirect promotion strategy. For example, you could post: “Our general manager Sally recently spoke to LeadingCompany about MBA options for study”, and include the link to the article. In this way you are providing people with an interesting read, which is also relevant to the business.

Create a content calendar

Be clear about the volume and frequency of content you post. To help you plan your content, consider developing a content calendar. This will also help you make the most of the content you have.

To ensure your content is informative and interesting as well as promotional, track every post to see that you have the right mix.

Some ideas for content may include posting a link to your blog, posting a link to an expert article, current industry news, photos, videos, questions, infographics, media coverage and more.

Intentions and sankalpas aren’t uttered once and then forgotten about. In yoga, during challenging poses we call forth our intention and allow it to power us through the posture. In the same fashion, when you are having difficulty in your social media strategy, once your sankalpa is set you’ll be able to call it forth when you need it, to guide your decisions and actions.