Social media can help both new and well-established brands and businesses grow their following, increase sales, generate leads, and perform essential customer service duties. Unfortunately, building up your social media presence takes time, patience, and a great deal of effort. Luckily, you can amplify your social media with the tips outlined in this article.
Amplifying your Social Media Efforts
Whether you’re just starting a new business or your business is already active on social media, there’s always a new way to get more bang for your buck. Of course, each platform has different uses, and your audience might be on all of them. Here are unique tips to help you improve your social media marketing efforts on any platform.
Post Consistently
Most small business owners make the mistake of only posting on social media when they have time. Unfortunately, posting inconsistently can make you lose followers faster than it took to gain them. How often and consistently you post will depend on the social media platforms you’re using. For example, if you want to utilize Instagram Stories to the best of your ability, you should aim to post multiple times a day. However, if you want to post on Facebook, you should only aim for one post per day.
Any post that has urgency should be an Instagram or Facebook story post, or it might not be seen in time. For example, if you have a flash sale going on, you should post it on your regular Facebook feed but appeal to your audience’s fear of missing out by also posting it as a story.
Of course, you should also have a strategy for posting. You may not want to post as frequently on LinkedIn as you do on Instagram.
Keep Your Messaging Focused
Your social media posts, bios, and descriptions should all be consistent with your brand messaging, even though each platform you use has a different demographic. For example, your audience on LinkedIn is going to be business professions, but on Instagram, you might be targeting parents.
There will also be overlap with your audiences on each platform. However, you must understand your audience and their demographics so you can tailor your messaging depending on the platform you’re using.
The good news is you can still use the same post, but you should make different variations of it based on the platform so you can speak to different audiences about the same topics.
Focusing your messaging helps your posts perform better while allowing you to create higher quality content that appeals to your audience.
Follow the Trends
Once you know your brand messaging, you should keep a lookout for trends that emerge on each social media site. This will allow you to tailor your strategy and align trends with your messaging so you can reach more people. However, you must avoid jumping on every trend you see. For example, if you see a competing business trending on Twitter, you might not want to make a meme about it.
It’s also important you stop creating content just because you saw a similar company create content like it. Your brand has its own unique identity, so it might not be reasonable to follow the trends. It’s best to participate in trends that are most relevant for your company and align with your overall values.
Work With Influencers
If you can’t seem to get people to follow your brand on social media, consider reaching out to an influencer that can help send their followers your way. For example, if you’re in the beauty industry, you can send an influencer a free product to promote your business. They’ll tell their followers to visit your social media page for deals and news in their posts.
Working with influencers allows you to tap into an audience that someone else already understands. Not only that, but influencers are considered thought leaders in their industries, so they can give you some authority if you’re a new business.
Analyze Your Results
Just like other types of marketing, social media marketing isn’t an exact science; it’s going to take some trial and error. Luckily, you can measure your social media successes and failures with social media reporting software that will let you know which posts were the most popular so you can continue to make similar posts.
Reporting will also help you pinpoint the perfect times to post so you can reach the most people. Remember, the number of followers you have is no longer the most important metric. Social media platforms like Facebook have made it increasingly more difficult for your posts to be seen by the public. Only about two percent of your posts are seen by your followers, and almost none are seen by people who aren’t following you unless others share them.
Use Video
Depending on the platform, you should try to break up content by using videos. Photos are known to get more engagement than a text post, but videos outperform both. Of course, your social media pages should have a healthy amount of different types of posts to keep them from getting stale.
A/B Test
Split testing allows you to test quick captions, headlines, and images to see which performs best so you can use them in the future. A/B testing allows you to schedule the same post with a different headline or image multiple times to see what works best for your business and can attract your audience. A/B testing allows you to see how different audiences react to a post depending on the copy, images, or even calls to action.
Engage With Your Audience
You can create the most beautiful posts that speak to your audience, but if you aren’t consistently engaging with them by replying to messages and comments, then your audience won’t feel appreciated. While you don’t have to respond to every comment you receive, you can react to it and make each person feel like they truly matter to your brand or business.
Don’t Forget Advertising
Social media advertising is one of the most cost-effective solutions to help your brand get in front of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of people with a few clicks of your mouse. When advertising on social media, make sure you put your brand’s best face forward and begin to communicate with your audience.
Author
AuthorMatt Casadona
Matt Casadona has a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration, with a concentration in Marketing and a minor in Psychology. Matt is passionate about marketing and business strategy and enjoys San Diego life, traveling, and music.