The realization that you need to upgrade your social media doesn’t necessarily come naturally. If you’ve had your social media pages on autopilot, posting sporadically or simply relying on the status quo to get by, then you might not recognize there’s a problem brewing.

It’s like when you’ve been driving around your reliable, fuel-conserving car for a number of years. It’s easy to get comfortable with your ride, right? You trust that you’ll be able to pop in your key, turn on the engine, and drive away into the sunset (or the local coffee shop, depending on what strikes your fancy). 

Then one day, you turn your key and hear a dreadful gurgle, a noisy clatter, a wheezy cough — or, perhaps worst of all, deafening silence. And you realize it’s time to head to the mechanic or maybe even upgrade your ride altogether.

If the day comes when your social media pages seem to be gurgling, clattering, wheezing, or producing the sound of crickets as your followers fade into the night, then you’ll know that’s the day to upgrade your social media. 

Never fear, because the following four simple steps are here to make your life easier. If you complete even one or two of these upgrades, then your social media pages should be humming along again in no time.

Step 1: Create Videos

This step is so easy, you’ll wonder why you haven’t been posting videos all along. Video content is huge on social media, now that anyone with a smartphone has a built-in video camera. All you need to do is pull out your phone and film a short video, upload it to social media with a fun caption, and maybe boost your best video content for better results (more on that later).

Here at Rallio, our video content is professionally scripted and filmed, with carefully crafted story lines and themes. However, you needn’t worry about getting too fancy if you don’t have the resources or time. 

A simple how-to video or a quick “hello” to your audience can be enough to breathe life into your social media pages, helping you move beyond just image-based content. You can also use live formats on Facebook and Instagram to build even more excitement and catch your followers in the moment, as they scroll.

We reveal several different video content ideas in our article 7 Proven Video Content Ideas Guaranteed to Liven Up Your Social Media. Read through it to see what types of content might resonate with your audience. Happy filming!

Step 2: Humanize Your Content

Creating video content is a great way to bring an authentic look and feel to your pages, but you can also extend that concept into all your different types of content. Posting real photos of your team, your location and your customers, along with their testimonials, is another way to humanize your content with your audience.

Know what doesn’t work? Bland, stale, “stock photo” imagery of random people doing random things. One of the simplest ways to upgrade your social media is by getting rid of anything that doesn’t authentically represent your business. 

Your followers can sniff out a phony from a terabyte away. And on the flip side, they’ll be instantly drawn to your page and your content if you ditch any photos that you, your team or your customers didn’t snap from your own cameras.

Step 3: Crowdsource Your Photos and Videos

By the way, another easy upgrade to your social media is through crowdsourcing content. You don’t have to be the one running around with a camera all day; assign the task to a social media manager, or distribute the task to a few different team members. 

You can also get your entire team involved by creating an employee advocacy program. With this program, you can formalize the process of taking and submitting photos, as well as rewarding your team for their contributions.

We go into more detail with our Employee Advocacy Checklist: “Did you know your employees have greater social reach than you do? And that people are more likely to buy something that’s been recommended by a friend or family member? It’s a hard truth, but one worth embracing. The fact is, your employees’ posts are more likely to earn engagements and visibility than content you create and post on your brand page.”

Walk through the steps to set up an in-house program that will help bulk up your social media presence, increase engagement and boost your following.

You can also try our Rallio Activate platform to organize all your assets in one place and incentivize team members. Need a hand creating and scheduling content? Our Rallio Local program gives you even more options to outsource the work.

Step 4: Toss Some Ad Dollars Around

If you’re new to advertising on social media, it can feel overwhelming to know where to begin. However, advertising is a non-negotiable when you’re looking for ways to upgrade your social media. As we write in this article: “Advertising on Facebook and other social media channels helps you to build brand awareness, generate leads and grow your following. [The] winning combination of great content, coupled with ad spend, increases the likelihood of making your content visible in newsfeeds.”

To get started, try boosting your popular content with a small amount of ad dollars. This way, you can push out your content in front of more eyeballs without spending a lot of time or money. In time, you might wish to incorporate additional ads in Messenger, Instagram Stories and other areas in order to increase your visibility even more.

Read through the article referenced above for a complete breakdown on the process. Again, our Rallio Local program can take this task off your plate if you’d rather let our experts get it done for you.

It’s Easy to Upgrade Your Social Media

Maybe you’ve put off upgrading your social media due to time constraints or lack of motivation to get it done. That’s understandable — and that’s why we’ve kept these four steps fairly simple. 

As author Mark Victor Hansen says: “Don’t wait until everything is just right. There will always be challenges, obstacles and less than perfect conditions. So what. Get started now. With each step you take, you will grow stronger, more and more skilled, more and more self-confident and more and more successful.” 

The simple actions you take will start to propel you forward into additional actions and successes. This week, commit to just one of the steps above, and before you know it, you might just find yourself making additional upgrades to your social media.