The Champions Guide to Social Media
We make no secret of the fact that social media is essential to modern business. We take it so seriously that we’ve been diving deep into the waters of what we refer to the Big Four of Social Media to compile comprehensive guides on how-to improve your brand’s social media presence on each platform and make it shine.
Then we got to thinking. Digital marketers are very busy people and what might be even more helpful (since we’re so generous), is to create supercharged pointers, by platform, that’s easy to follow and painless to action.
So, drum roll please, from social profiles, targeting audiences and types of content, here are the essentials to excelling in each of the major social networks.
Founded by Mark Zuckerberg, along with some of his fellow Harvard College roommates, this channel still reigns as one of the most widely used platforms amongst adults, in the world. To be precise, there are currently 2.41 billion.
Social media goals
The first step to any social media marketing strategy is setting the right goals. So, determine whether it’s a community engagement, an increase in website traffic or a lead sales gen job that you want out of this particular channel.
Be a community
Conversation should never be an after-thought on social media platforms and Facebook is a great place to hold discussions with existing, and new audiences. Ask questions, start a conversation and respond to comments, every day. Create a group and invite your audience if that suits their behaviour.
Schedule your content
With so many options for the type of content that you can post, and also with so many options to reach followers, scheduling and planning can be time consuming when you try and action this manually. Make use of Facebook’s Page controls, so you can free up a little time for work gossip at the water cooler.
Invest in paid campaigns or abandon ship
Facebook’s organic reach took a nosedive some time ago, so you have to pay-to-play here. Follow the same steps as you have for your page… decide on your goals, create a custom audience you want to reach, and select your content type in on Facebook Manager. Your paid strategy should complement your organic so that you maintain brand consistency.
But, don’t write off this channel because of this extra task, Facebook boasts the largest engaged user-base of all the social networks so you will reap rewards.
Believe it or not, people took photos before Instagram. But, it wasn’t long after Kevin Systrom posted the first image to the social channel in October 2010, the world became totally addicted to this photo-sharing app.
Appearance matters
Adopt (or hurry up and define if you’re starting up), the guidelines for your brand look and tone, and ensure you maintain visual consistency. Beyond your business style standard, the easiest way to do this is to select a filter. And then stick with it. When someone comes across your feed, the page should look like a cohesive brand, that’s undoubtedly synonymous with your other channels.
What do users actually want to see?
Quite simply, people. Showing faces get 38% more likes so increase your engagement by celebrating your team members, introducing your brand advocates and showing actual humans using your products. Illustrating the personality of your business through people allows your audience to relate to you better.
Location, location, location
Utilise the option to tag your location. Posts tagged with a location see 79% higher engagement than posts that don’t.
Use the right hashtags
Look at the content you’re about to post, identify a generic term that relates to it, and search said generic term in the hashtag section. This will uncover a whole list of related hashtags. Follow the wormhole for a short while and you will uncover a series of hashtags. Choose a magic number, we say between 8 and 10 is plenty. These hashtags will each have a dedicated community of followers.
Just imagine how much more discoverable you become by relating to a range of different audience groups.
With over 600 million active global members, LinkedIn is the silent giant of the Big Four social media platforms. It’s the stomping ground for professional networking.
Sell yourself
Your profile is a reflection of your brand and should be put under the same scrutiny as your website build went through. Make your headline and About information interesting, saucy even, and remember your all-important keywords in this copy.
Get connected
Growing your network is key to increasing your exposure and making the most out of your LinkedIn efforts. Nurture your followers and provide value before you expect them to reciprocate. Give them a reason to interact with you through your compelling content posts.
Content building blocks
The lifeblood of your LinkedIn activity. As the content on this social platform has a longer lifespan than others, the focus should be on quality and three posts per week should be more than enough.
A few building blocks that you can use to support the content strategy include Company Updates, Industry News, Company Culture and Product Showcasing.
Community management opens doors
The activity tab under your page management dashboard makes it extremely easy to keep track of people who leave comments on your updates. Make sure you check in on this every day and reply to anyone who’s acting as an ambassador for your brand.
Twitter has evolved significantly since its inception in 2006. What started as a fun platform to share your idol musings, has become a real-time pulse of world events and conversations.
First impressions count
Build a profile that stands out from uploading eye-catching imagery for your profile picture, and your banner, writing an elevator pitch about your brand for the bio, through to providing the standard info like your location and website details.
Scout your audience
People use Twitter to discover what’s happening in the world so finding people who are interested in the same things as your business, is vital. In the ad section, try searching by age, gender, interests and conversations and start following those who tickle your interest.
It’s not all about written word
Yes, we use this platform to share our news and commentaries, but don’t discount the importance of including still image or video into your tweets. Capturing the eye of your community will increase levels of emotion, and even memorability with your audience, working to keeping them engaged.
One blink and you could be missed
Twitter moves fast so your brand needs to be constantly engaged to keep hold of your committed audience. Embrace hashtags to be part of wider conversations and interact quickly with your followers, whether it be with a retweet, a like, a follow or a personal response.
The same rules apply
To wrap up, there are three definite ‘one-size-fits-all’ rules that you should bear in mind, in addition to the channel specific hints and tips we have shared above:
Create your own content: so that your brand is clearly identified to your audiences and to nail your visual storytelling, rather than relying on stock imagery that kinda supports what you are trying to say or sell. Remember that the content you create should be adapted for each platform. You don’t want to be the person who just blasts their social media feeds with Buffer/Hootsuite.
Test and learn: play around with how many times a week you post content, and which days and times you post. Audiences with different interests will be active on social channels at different times and it’s important to find the optimum moments for your engagement.
Analyse: there are so many different metric options you can choose from for your reporting. Whilst you should have a wide understanding of your social performance, make sure you are monitoring regularly the specific area that relates back to your goals. Each channel has analytics and insight options so utilise these for efficiency in your reporting, rather than trying to calculate your stats manually.
Whatever the social media sites are that you decide to focus on for your business, even if it’s all of the Big Four, these platforms have the power for you to build meaningful and purposeful relationships, that can ultimately drive brand fame. This may be a quick step guide but take the time to consider your look and tone, your guidelines and your strategy so you are clear and focussed from the outset.