Regardless the social media outlet your company uses to publish its posts to promote itself or its services, it is imperative to take certain steps to ensure those posts reach their targeted audience. If the post is improperly placed, its usefulness and value are severely hindered.

Despite the cacophony of posts flooding social media outlets, especially on the most popular ones like Facebook and LinkedIn, there are ways to make your posts garner attention.

Wendy Witt, an estate planning attorney in Pittsburgh whose background includes social media marketing experience, has some tips to make social media posts stand out from the crowd. Those suggestions include:

• Publish a photo along with the post
  
  
• Be sure posts offer helpful, relevant information 90 percent of the time followed by an “ask” to sell something ten percent of the time
  
  
• Reach out to people on social media and use their name when doing so
  
  
• Acknowledge when someone likes or shares your post, using their name when doing so
  
  
• Respond to comments to encourage a dialogue
  
  
• Ask followers to share/retweet your message
  
  

Remember, says Witt, “Social media is not just for one-sided posting. It’s a conversation.”

A recent article on Business.com was succinct when offering advice for attracting attention to a social media post.  Use custom photos, urged the article.

According to the piece, custom photos sets posts apart from most, since the majority of photographs that accompany posts are of poor quality. Avoid using dull stock photos as they rob a post from authenticity. If a post or article would benefit from having professional images accompany it, then be sure to take that step. Cheap images leave a cheap impression, and that’s likely not the effect you want to leave on potential customers and clients.

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Tami Kamin Meyer is an Ohio attorney and writer.