How to make your social media outreach successful

As brands become more and more visible on social media, the role of PR pros who understand the digital landscape gains importance.

Hundreds of PR pros, marketers and community managers gathered to learn from experts at Ragan’s third annual Social Media for PR and Corporate Communications Conference at Walt Disney World.

Though the lessons were numerous—Ragan.com will share Storify compilations and highlight the conference on Pinterest—here are four insights that PR pros can use to ramp up their social media outreach:

1. Tap into the power of your community.

“Everything we do is powered by people,” says Thomas Smith, social media director for Disney Parks and founder of the Disney Parks blog.

Smith and his team use blog content as a “litmus test” to learn what Disney’s audience wants, and passionate collaborators guest-blog for the magical brand. Tapping into community members’ stories and insights delivers a wealth of content, which only helps build the brand across social media.

“The more content we put out there, the more people are engaging with us,” Smith says.