Building a name for your business online takes work, but a strong presence on social media is key to success in 2017. Local businesses and mega corporations alike have harnessed the web and turned today’s biggest platforms to their advantage. Now, you can do the same for your own company. Implement these five strategies into your business’s web routine and you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can grow your following, boost engagement and promote your business.

1. Follow a Schedule

A lot of businesses tend to post whenever they have something to say, but this isn’t the best way to go about handling social media. Instead, you want to follow a set schedule. Not only does this make it easier for you to plan content, but you will also be able to post at the right times for your audience to increase visibility.

Conduct some analytics to determine when most of your followers and people in your target audience are online. Plan to post at least three times throughout the day at designated hours, and stick to this schedule.

2. Curate Content

The web is a big place, and it’s a huge waste for anyone online to only post their own content. The name says it all: social media. Find quality, non-competitive links to share with your followers. Doing this not only increases the likelihood of people sharing your posts but also reflects positively on you. People who share helpful content come off as passionate and interested in their audience, and those are two qualities you can never emphasize enough.

3. Use Hashtags Appropriately

Many people throw hashtags around like they’re nothing, but these devices are actually one of the primary ways you can get new viewers. You don’t want to post a lot of hashtags on a Facebook post, but on Instagram, these are the number one way people find new content.

Do some research on the most popular hashtags in your market, then be sure to like and follow other accounts who are posting as well. You can also go on a “follow train”, which involves looking at the list of followers for a popular account that posts content similar to yours and following their followers. This is a fast and easy way to get noticed since there are always bound to be people who will follow you back.

4. Engage

Make it a point to like, comment and follow new people daily. No one wants to follow a stale account. Your comments and engagement on social media are what breathe life into your page and help establish a personality alongside your brand identity.

5. Cross-Promote

Don’t stick to one social media page; sign up for several of the most popular platforms and use them to promote your other content. For example, if your business has a blog, use Pinterest to pin the posts and tag them with relevant hashtags. If you’re on Instagram, upload intriguing images and tell people to head over to your Twitter for more info. Cross-promotion establishes continuity and can help build up a page that needs some TLC. However, make sure when expanding your reach among social media to add new channels one at a time, to ensure your server has enough bandwidth to handle them.

Don’t Think of It as Just Social Media

To help you promote business on social media, you need to understand that social media management and marketing are a commitment; a lot of effort goes into generating content ideas, publishing new posts and actively engaging with others in order to build relationships with an existing audience and attract new followers. There’s a lot of legroom to make your page a reflection of your business’s own unique style, but adopting good social media habits like the ones mentioned above are a great way to maximize the efficacy of your time online.