Marketing has changed rapidly since the advent of social media. Now, there is a need for brands to build a strong social media presence as a way to communicate with existing and potential customers, fans, and followers.
Aside from being a great communication tool, maintaining social media platforms can also decrease your marketing costs since it’s mostly free to use. It can also help businesses increase their sales, brand awareness, website traffic, and search engine rankings.
Since the digital landscape has been continually changing through the years, and the tastes of consumers have also evolved, people still struggle to make their social media presence more effective. So, here are a few tips that might help you optimize your resources and grow your network.
Focus on One Social Media Platform First
It’s good to build an active presence in all major social networks. However, it’s best to focus on one platform first. Evaluate where your target audience is spending the most time in and concentrate on building up your following and content in that network.
Once you have gained traction, you can put more effort into an additional social media platform. If you’re not sure where your audience is more active, you can check the latest statistics and research online.
Proofread Before You Post
It’s normal to have a typo now and then. However, having chronic mistakes can affect your credibility quite severely.
To avoid that, it’s important to read and re-read your content before and after you post it. If you do discover a mistake that slipped under your watch, you can easily hit the edit button no matter what platform you are in.
If you are unsure about the spelling or grammar, look it up online for confirmation or have someone to proofread it for you. Online tools like Grammarly can help you immensely.
Follow the 60/20/20 Rule
The 60/20/20 rule means that 60% of your posts are helpful tips and information, 20% are content supporting your friends or followers, and 20% are self-promotional posts. You might be wondering why you should only promote your product or service 20% of the time. It’s because it is called social media for a reason. You have to be social.
If most of your posts tell people what you want them to do or are hard-sell content, they might get the impression that you’re just any other sales-hungry business. Before making a post, ask yourself what value you can give to your audience and what they need or are looking for.
Include Graphics
Most people usually scroll past shared links. What gets their thumbs to stop and click are photos that effectively capture their attention and tell them a snippet of what they’ll get from the information you shared. This is especially useful for blog posts.
Take note that optimal graphic sizes vary depending on the social media platform. The optimal size for a Facebook post may not be the right size for an Instagram story. You can create different versions of your graphics using tools like Canva or Visme.
Be Consistent
It’s recommended to have a posting schedule when managing social media content, and you should stick to it. Just like maintaining websites, your pages should be consistent and coherent. Update them regularly with content that is related to your business. Irrelevant content would just push the relevant ones down the timeline.
Be Nice
You may get a couple of violent reactions and hurtful outbursts from followers or customers. It’s important to still maintain a nice, professional tone when responding or handling the issue. You may not be able to appease the person of their grievances, but at least you handled it like a professional.
Use Hashtags Strategically
Hashtags are quite useful for widening your reach. However, it’s usually prone to abuse. When you use hashtags, your content will be accessible to people whose interests are related to your hashtagged word or those who search for them. Using the right hashtag can broaden your reach to more potential followers or customers.
Just make sure to keep your hashtags short and don’t cramp too many words into one hashtag. Also, don’t overuse it to the point that almost every word of your caption is a hashtag. Ideally, it should be placed at the end of the text.
Hashtags that are used too many times by too many accounts have the potential to reach a broader audience. However, your content may go unnoticed because of all those appearing at once. You can mix these high-volume hashtags with more specific ones for your post.