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Here are my tips for social media success in 2017:
Content is … and always has been … king
Great content has always been the key to social media success. Building brand awareness, promoting your services, and finding the right audience will be the result of posting diverse, high-quality content. Talk to your team for input at all levels.
Tell … don’t sell
Does your content benefit your customers? What’s in it for them? Understand what they care about and deliver content that is relevant and useful.
Check out Facebook ads
Facebook’s Ad Manager enables you to target your audiences based on specific criteria, including Life Events. When people let their friends know about a new change in their life by adding it to their timeline, it allows you to display your ads to these people directly based on that Life Event. For example, if someone notes in their profile that they have purchased a “New Vehicle,” you can serve up ads for automobile insurance. You can also target people based on interests, recent behavior (such as entering retirement), income, relationship status, education, and so on. Using these filters helps you target your audience to only those who are most likely to be interested in your offer.
Maintain proper frequency
If you have more than 10,000 Facebook followers, twice a day is a good rule of thumb. Less than that, two to five times a week might be good – once a week if your audience is strictly B2B. For Twitter, two to five times a day is optimal, although more is fine if you have the time to create useful content. Instagram works best when are consistent with your frequency – the number of posts per day is less important.
Interact in real time
While auto-posting tools such as HootSuite are great, you also must engage with your audience in real conversations. If someone comments “Nice photo!”, you should reply “Thank you!” in real time. Reply to questions ASAP. On LinkedIn, click on “Who Viewed Your Posts.” You can see who has liked, commented, or shared your posts, which helps ensure that you’re responding to comments and targeting people who show interest in your brand.
Be human
Related to the previous tip on engaging in conversations, consider posting real time photos of your team. It shows your brand as human and approachable. This can include images of your team’s volunteer / charitable work, “bring your pet to work day,” birthday celebrations, and so on.
Be conversational
Again, related to the previous post, you should adopt a “voice” that is friendly, authentic and conversational. Don’t “hard-sell” or strong-arm your audience.
Use hashtags
Target your audience with creative use of hashtags – whether B2C or B2B. It also helps you start a conversation, and allows you to track a promotion’s success across multiple platforms.
Create infographics
Infographics are visual representations of complex information, data or knowledge presented in a clear and quickly-grasped way. Infographics are shared far more often than other content.
Be consistent
Ensure you have brand consistency across all platforms. This seems like a no-brainer, but many marketers are using different header images, logos and colors for each social media network.
Keep up with Facebook changes
Just when you have your business’ Facebook page running like a well-oiled machine, Facebook will change the rules. Stay on top of those changes by regularly searching for the latest posts on “Facebook changes.”
Plan ahead
Take time to understand where your audience spends their time – for example, Snapchat is now a leading platform among teens. Create your voice or “persona,” and begin building out your content calendar and library – including images, videos and infographics. Decide who creates content, who posts it, who engages with the audience and so on. Don’t “assume” someone will take care of things!
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