Like anything within digital marketing, the key to figuring out what works is to find what works for you. There are general guidelines when it comes to social media, sharing, and social engagement. But these are just guidelines, and you may find that you need to alter and iterate on these guidelines to find your perfect solution. Without a doubt, though, here are some good social "do's" to get you started.

01.

Share, Don't Sell

It's tempting to spend all of your social media efforts to promote your latest project, product, or service. But audiences are so inundated with ads these days, it'll easy to see right through yours. Worse yet, you'll hurt any trust and faith you're trying to build with new prospects. Instead focus on build a community through sharing things that illustrate your company and its culture; things that people will want to engage with and that will make them feel closer to your organization -- even at a distance.

02.

Know Your Audience

This is key. We all have our ideal targets, but who are you doing business with today? Who is engaging most with your content? Take the time to do the research, find out who these people are and what they're interested in. This will help you tailor your posts to capture the most audience engagement. If you post what you know your audience will want to read, the engagement should come naturally.

03.

Be a Thought Leader

Don't just focus and post on what matters within your company. Focus on what matters within your industry. Become well-rounded in your industry knowledge so that you can become the industry voice within your organization. This knowledge can serve you well on social media in the form of thought leadership. You will become an authority in what you're posting about, and in turn, you'll be able to build deeper connections and trust with your audience. Ask thought provoking questions. And be ready to engage your audience further when they answer.

04.

Be True to Your Brand

It's all about consistency with visuals and content. It's easier for your audience to engage with you quicker if they can recognize your content at a glance. This comes from thoroughly branded visuals that supplement your content. And whether your realize this or not, what you post will begin to mold and shape your brand even if it's not intended. So you'll want to make sure that what you put out is always consistent with the brand standards you've already established internally. This will help ensure brand consistency. And as you maintain brand consistency, it'll help your audience recognize and consume your content faster.

05.

Engage. Engage. Engage.

It isn't just about posting to social media. You must be willing to engage as well. Social media is a two-way form of communication, and it functions the best when it's used that way. This will allow you to build stronger connections with your audience. Be willing to address their questions or concerns. Or simply provide some conversational back and forth with your thought leadership questions and prompts. 

06.

Create Shareable Content

This seems pretty obvious, right? If you want to increase your engagement, the key is to not only get your audience to engage, but to then get your audience to share and have their connections engage. And shareable content can come in many forms. It can be a simple quote graphic that is thought to inspire at the beginning of the day. Or it can be an educational infographic. It could also be a video that's entertaining and insightful.

07.

Like. Share. Retweet. Repeat. Often.

This takes one step forward from Engage. Engage. Engage. While it's a good start to engage with others who engage with you, it's a good goal to work toward engaging with content outside of what you're posting. This could be other thought leaders within your industry. This could be top consumers of your content. Likewise if you're sharing and retweeting other consumable content, it'll help lessen the load of creating all of the content yourself. It's OK to engage with and share what others are saying, too.

08.

Tailor your Content to your Network

Or in this case, your audience or customers. This ties into knowing your audience. If you've taken the time to research and understand what is important to your audience, you'll have a clearer path on what to post that might be of interest. It's always important to tailor your content to your audience, whether it's with social, email, or anything else.

09.

Choose the Medium that Matters

As marketers, it's tempting to jump on to every social media platform out there for further reach. But this will only maximum your workload while hurting your delivery and engagement. When you're spread too thin, you can't concentrate on perfecting your message where it counts. Test a few platforms that you are interested in, but ultimately pay attention to the data. Who is engaging where? Then you can focus all of your attention on the platforms that are most beneficial to you.

10.

Collaborate to Cultivate

Collaboration can come in many forms. This could mean collaboration with other companies, where you both benefit from the shared audience and engagement. Or collaboration could come internally, by providing content from all of the interesting factions within your organization. Have an audience that interested in all of the latest technology, and a development team that's ripe with knowledge? Perfect! Use members of that team to help draft content that you know will appeal to your audience.