“Is this thing on?” [Actor taps a finger on the mic.]

Sometimes sending a Tweet out to the Twittersphere feels like sending 140 characters into a black hole. Did anyone read it? Did it make an impact? Why didn’t they retweet? Why didn’t they respond?

Your social media followers may not be waiting on standby for every Tweet, Facebook post and Instagram post that you craft. Sad but true! Here are tips for increasing the likelihood that your words do not fall into an abyss.

Target That Audience!

Are you pushing your content out…and sitting back and waiting for it to be read? Communication is not a one-way street. Listen, watch and read what your target influencers are posting. Then – have a social media conversation with them.

Follow your target influencers, organizations, businesses and clients. Comment on their posts. Like their stuff! Ask them questions! Break the ice and make them notice you.

In the Fall issue of the Nutrition Entrepreneurs’ Ventures newsletter, registered dietitian nutritionist Julie Beyer, MA, RDN posed an important question in her piece, “Where Did My Audience Go?”

Julie asked: “Do you know where your audience hangs out? Not sure? Just ask them! They will be happy to know you care. And isn’t creating relationships what social media is all about?”

Use Your Real Estate Wisely

While your next Tweet may not go viral (we can dream, right?) there are ways to get a few more looks at your social media content. When was the last time you placed a video or image in your social media post? According to a HubSpot post, researchers found that color visuals increase people’s willingness to read a piece of content by 80 percent, and that visual content is more than 40 times more likely to get shared on social media than other types of content. The same post cited that 65 percent of marketing execs believe that visual assets (photos, video, illustrations and infographics) are core to how their brand story is communicated. I’m with them!

Is there room in your post for URLs, hashtags, tagging a relevant or quoted individual? Can you share a video, image or photo? If not, try to make room. And of course, ensure that your content of choice is relevant.

Lastly, be polite and ask a favor. On occasion, if you really need to get the word out, ask “please…” if you’d like them to “please RT” or “please share.”

Monitor, Analyze, Evaluate

Monitoring and measuring are key if you want to track impressions, click-throughs, conversions, etc. There are gobs of tool and platforms to help you monitor your social presence. But slicing and dicing through analytics can take practice until you know which stats are key to your business growth.

Experiment with your own social media content. Then revisit to learn which posts were most successful – which ones were shared, liked, received comments, etc. Were your posts a hit with women in their 50s on the east coast? Or did you receive the most “likes” from your core teen audience during the breakfast hour before they went to school? Did your unique hashtag get the pickup you thought it would?

Various platforms can help gauge everything from growth to engagement to sentiment. Here are a few that get plenty of play in social media round-ups:

HootSuite: Offers a free dashboard that allows you to manage social media activity for various accounts (Twitter/Facebook) in one place. Saves time when you have multiple brands and sites to track.

Buffer (price range free through $399): Buffer sends a weekly report to let you know how your posts have been performing for each of your social profiles.

SproutSocial (free trial, then $59/user per mo): View aggregate or individual post stats for Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and Google+ content, including clicks, reach and engagement.

Brand24 (free 14 day trial, then $49/mo): Discover what people are saying online about your brand in real time; this platform accumulates mentions about your brand from across the web.

Rival IQ (free 14 day trial, then $199/mo): Tracks brands of your choosing and monitors their activity on Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn, and SEO. Sheds light on industry as a whole.

And of course, there’s Twitter Analytics and Facebook Insights.

Lastly, evaluate. It’s not solely about having data that makes the difference. It’s about what you do with that data.

What do you do to increase your social media mojo?

Photo credit: Flynt | Dreamstime.com – <a href=”https://www.dreamstime.com/royalty-free-stock-photos-vintage-microphone-stage-retro-lighting-background-image33057078#res7037649″>Vintage microphone on stage</a>