Having an inclusive voice on social media allows you to tap into other kinds of conversations that your brand may not have been able to before.

Actively taking a stand by joining important online conversations, or showing support by actively practicing inclusivity, will put your brand in the spotlight. This is because you are making your stance known.

Communicating with an inclusive voice creates awareness about your brand's offering, its position within its community, as well as what it stands for — such as ideals or beliefs that will resonate with others.

At the end of the day, consumers are more likely to support brands that strive to do more than just make a sale.

With that in mind, here are three ways to be inclusive online:

1. Know your audience on social media

Before you post anything, you need to first familiarise yourself with your audience. You can do this by looking into their demographics, such as their age, gender, language, race, ethnicity, religion and culture. However, what you're able to see will depend on the platform you’re looking at.

Social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram will provide insights like age and gender. LinkedIn, however, provides information like the industries that your viewers work for, their seniority level and the size of the organisations that they are employed by.

The information is varied, but it will guide you in terms of understanding your audience's frame of reference, their preferences and their customer behaviour.

Let’s use an example to show these insights at play: If your brand uses a lot of trending memes and GIFs in its social content, it may not gain the desired amount of engagement with older viewers.

In this case, having insight into your followers' ages and cultural references will help you to identify what content would resonate with them, increasing the chance of better metrics and ROI.

However, a common mistake to make is to assume that this information will provide you with all that there is to know about your audience. This is simply not the case. Getting to know your followers fully takes time and sincere interactions with them.

You need to make an effort to gain information about those who are not yet part of your audience so that your online voice can cater for potential new followers too. You don't want to lose them at the very first impression.

2. Use the right wording on your platforms

You have to know what you stand for before you can engage in a conversation on social media.

For example, if your brand has chosen to stand behind the #BlackLivesMatter movement, you need to know the context behind the initiative, the goal behind the conversation and the jargon that comes with it. You don’t want to say the wrong thing and get caught up in a social media crisis.

Remember, if this is an initiative that your audience is supporting, they'll already be quite clued up on what it's about, which means you need to be as well. Educate yourself and be sure that you know all the right information before you start posting, or else your attempt at inclusivity may come across as shallow and, therefore, unfruitful.

Additionally, your team must continuously be keeping up to date with what is happening in your environment. You will need to actively read up on these evolving conversations in order to be able respond, react or adapt appropriately.

However, if you’re strapped for time, you could make use of a social media monitoring tool to keep track of trends within the industry so that your content is always up to date, and so that you’re including the right inclusive content.

3. Monitor your social media content

Being inclusive on social media is about more than just posting your own diverse content. It’s also about reacting and engaging to others' posts as well.

Let’s take Twitter, for example. The platform encourages users to participate in trending hashtags and conversations. Because the lifecycle of these tweets is so short, your brand will really need to focus on keeping up to speed by knowing what keywords, topics and hashtags are being used in these conversations.

This is why tools like amaSocial are critical when it comes to maintaining an inclusive online presence.

These tools assist in keeping your brand informed on current events and posts. They give you an 'extra set of eyes and ears' on the ground so that you can respond instantly to relevant keywords in conversations that are taking place on these platforms.

These services can be the defining factor between you leading a profound conversation (leading to an epic response from your followers, and others) and you tarnishing your brand’s name in an effort to have a ‘say’.

The tool also allows you to track your posts to see what has resonated with your audience, as well as what hasn’t. For example, if the sentiment surrounding one of your posts is negative, you’ll be able to see this with amaSocial. You’ll also then be instantly notified of the post so that you can respond accordingly.

You’ll also be able to keep track of positive sentiment surrounding your brand, allowing you to see if your inclusive content is being received well by your audience. This helps you to refine your voice and amplify your strategy for the future.

For more information, visit www.amasocial.co.za. You can also follow amaSocial on Facebook, Twitter or LinkedIn.