New opportunities arise every day on social media and only people who optimize their accounts benefit from them. To effectively use any social medium, you must be skilled.

There is no room for amateurs on social media. If you must learn the ropes while using social media, you must learn it fast. You increase your engagement and achieve overall goals on social media when you leave the amateur level. The factors that can keep you on an amateur level include;

Using all social media platforms

All social media platforms serve different purposes. Not all social media can serve you and your brand’s purpose. You need to choose the appropriate social media to effectively utilize the features of social media.

Using all social media reduces your chances of success because it takes away concentration. Here’s a guide to determine which social media is important to you and your brand;

Define your audience: your audience should be a priority. Check the demographics of your audience, and their likes and go where they are.

Type of content: compare the kind of content that you produce to a social medium. For example, Youtube is mainly video while Facebook is more text. 

Competitors: Most times, your competitors are where you ought to be. They may have done their research and developed an effective strategy. Note that while competitors point you in the right direction, you should also do your research.

Not having a target audience 

Not everyone is your customer. Target audience differs according to the services/product a brand offers. Having a target group in mind informs your marketing strategy, saves effort and time and increases your chances at sales.

 Every social media has certain age groups that dominate, choosing social media where your audience dominates is a wise decision. You can determine your target audience by creating personals and through research. A target audience can help you get  Facebook page like, increase Twitter followings and get more engagement on Instagram.

Less than stellar social media profile

Social media profiles are like an introduction about you and what you do. It is important to have a profile that attracts your prospective customers and allows you to attain your social media growth. Here are ways to boost your profile;

• Choose a unique and memorable username.
• Use a quality profile picture 
• Your bio should be concise and impressive.
• Use relevant hashtags and link to other social media. 

It is advised to use the same username and picture across the social media platforms that you use. This allows you to be easily recognized on social media. 

Lousy graphics and images on posts

Images are important on social media to hook users. While Youtube is an online video streaming platform, it still uses thumbnails, which are small-sized pictures that introduce your video.

Amateurs do not pay attention to pictures in their posts. Less-quality images reduce attention, users may not go further to read what a post is about if the graphics are not aesthetic. Moving forward, use clear, quality and informative graphics on your posts.

Also, there are specific sizes of images on different social media. The frames for profile pictures and posts may also be different. Be sure to check the dimensions of pictures on a social medium before making a post so that the image(s) will not be distorted.

These discussed factors will launch you from an amateur level to at least an intermediate level. Utilize the solutions plus more to benefit from social media.