According to research, is an approximate 2.77 billion users on social media, it seems like everyone and their grandma are on at least one social media platform these days. If you have a business that you want to promote, it is important to know the latest social media best practices to stay ahead of your competition.
Social media is an umbrella term for multiple platforms that each provide a different audience and benefit for your business.
No matter what type of business you have, a well designed social media campaign can help you to promote your brand and connect to your audience.
The only problem is that without a clear understanding of how to create a social media campaign, you may be wasting some precious time and money.
Keep on reading to learn all the social media best practices and how to create your own successful social media campaign, in any platform you choose.
Let’s get started.
Social Media 101: What Is a Social Media Campaign, Anyway?
Social media has become so popular that people have actually developed addictions to constantly checking their phones. Nomophobia is a fear of being away from one’s mobile device for too long. This clearly shows the value of social media for your business.
Search engine marketing is beneficial, however, you need the exact keywords to find your audience through Google. More people are finding websites and blogs because of links, shares, and recommendations on social media. In fact, 93% of people are more likely to buy because of a referral or recommendation from a friend.
Whether you are solely working with only Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, or all of them (which you should), in order to set up a successful campaign you need to get clear with the objectives:
Understand Your Objective
Before you begin to create your campaign, you need to get clear on what outcome you are expecting. This will help you stay focused and keep consistency with your content.
Are you selling a product? Promoting an event? Looking for more engagement? Promoting a course? Spreading awareness for a non-profit? Write your objectives down and read them every day to keep yourself on track.
Get Clear On Your Target Audience
Getting clear on who you are trying to reach will help you to overcome many blocks and mistakes when you publish your content. Figure out their age, interests, hobbies, professions, family life, problems they face, gender, location, and even similar websites that they like.
Cater your content as if it was written exactly for that person you have described. Really try to connect to them and relate to their frustrations, this will not only boost your online reputation but also, it will help you establish relationships with your audience.
Figure out How Each Channel Will Serve Your Objective
Each social media platform brings its own flavor to your objective. Twitter is great for promoting events, Instagram helps you to connect and relate to your audience, and Facebook ads are great for target marketing your exact audience.
Create a Content Calendar For All Platforms
Depending on your audience, there are specific times of the day that they will be most likely on their phones and scrolling through their news feeds. Do your research to find out the optimal times, then set up a calendar with strategic posts that they will discover at least two times per day. This will keep your account fresh in their minds.
Create Engaging Content
The objective of social media content is to create something so engaging that your viewers will want to tag, retweet, or share it with their friends. In order to do that, your content must be visually appealing. By using something like Canva, you can create visually appealing images with text, such as memes and infographics.
Schedule Posts and Create Ads
Now that you have an objective, beautiful content, and a solid plan, it is time to start publishing your posts! If you want to boost the number of people that will see your posts, run a few optimized A/B ads to your targeted audience. Adjust the details as necessary.
If you feel that you are too busy to create two posts per day, look no further than using scheduling apps such as Hootsuite to make your life easier.
Keep The Engagement
After your posts have gone live, you are going to receive some comments, likes, and questions, especially if they were boosted as an ad. You want to be around for this time to respond to each individual comment as it will show the algorithms that you are an active user and boost your reputation.
If you are a medical and healthcare field, for example, having a quick reply will show your prospective clients that you care about their questions and want to be there for hem when they need it
Check the Analytics and Adjust as Necessary
Are some posts receiving a lot of engagement, while others are barely getting noticed? Do some research into your analytics and figure out which posts your target audience is responding to the best. After that, keep making posts with a similar feel and timing to really draw in more viewers.
Overview of the Facebook Best Practices
Facebook is perfect for engaging with your audience, and posting general statements and information is not a way to create fan engagement. You need to make posts that will draw in your followers and spark an emotional response so that they will continue to share it with others.
Create posts that ask a specific question, get people to fill in the blanks, or get their opinion on something. You can also make pictures with text that asks a question, prompting people to “comment below”.
Take Advantage of Promotional Opportunities
Your business page should appear like a business page, so you need to leverage any opportunity you can to promote your brand. The description and photos on your page are the perfect chance to do so.
Add links to your website in your page descriptions, with a short brief of what your mission is. Add “buy now” or “call now” buttons to initiate activity from your visitors.
Leverage your Facebook cover photo as much as you can, use Canva or hire a graphic designer to create an epic banner that perfectly displays the theme of your brand.
Time to Get Real
A lot of people are stuck in a business mode which makes their content seem almost lifeless and boring. Break the boring by posting about topics that create a stir, just keep it friendly so that you do not have any angry internet trolls trying to take you down!
Some suggestions to keep things real would be to:
- Remember that these are actual people, put yourself in their shoes and remember what you would have expected if someone were to reply to you.
- When answering someone’s comment, use their first name.
- Treat them exactly how you would treat them if they were standing in from of you in person.
- Respect people’s viewpoints, even if you do not agree with them.
- Post funny memes and get people laughing. Sharing a laugh with others can do wonders for relationship building.
Use Hashtags Appropriately
Hashtags are relatively new to Facebook, and they help you to reach an audience that is looking at similar posts to your niche. There is nothing worse than reading a post that is full of hashtags, it looks cluttered and unappealing.
Follow these tips when creating your hashtags:
- Do not stuff your hashtags throughout your description.
- Do not make up hashtags with nonsensical words.
- Use hashtags that you have researched for, making sure that they are not currently banned.
- Do not use the same hashtags in every post, otherwise, you can be seen as quite desperate.
Analytics
Facebook has incredible analytics, right down to the nitty-gritty details of the exact age demographics and interests of the people that liked, shared, and viewed your posts. Become familiar with analytics because they help you to measure the results of your marketing efforts.
Overview of the Twitter Best Practices
With a limitation of 140 characters, Twitter forces you to be more creative with your marketing efforts. To add to that, there are 326 active monthly international Twitter users that you have to stand out from.
Be Visible
The more you set up your Twitter account, the easier it will be for users to find and follow you. Optimize your bio with catchy information about your mission and links to your website to learn more.
Your Twitter handle should be short and sweet, without any symbols or numbers which can confuse users about the legitimacy of your brand.
Add a pinned tweet to show users your most engaging post to draw them in and become your new followers.
Find Authentic Followers
You want to make your best efforts into finding active followers that create engagement and help to promote your brand. Those 1000 devoted fans are much more effective than 10 000 followers that do not pay attention to your tweets.
Do a search on apps like Buzzsumo to find other industry leaders in your niche, whoever is making a current buzz, you want them to follow your page.
Use hashtags, mentions, links, locations, and keywords to find these industry leaders and start to establish a Twitter relationship with them.
Be Present and Active
Twitter has become the go-to social media platform for answering questions and engaging with real users about your brand. Nowadays, if people ever have a problem with a business, they go straight to Tweeting them instead of calling their 1-800 number!
Some creative ways to increase your Twitter engagement are evoking conversations, create a poll or survey, join Twitter chats, talk about trending events or topics, ask questions or get feedback from your customers.
Try to post at least 3-5 times per day for the next 30 days and watch how your authentic following will grow!
Know the Best Practices of Instagram
Instagram now has over 500 million daily active users, making it the new top choice of social media for many businesses today. There are millions of hours spent by people scrolling through their feed in hopes to find something that excites them and takes them on a journey.
Understand Your Audience
Whatever you do, do not go down the dark route of purchasing followers, this will only make your page become convoluted and people will find out, which will either make you seem inauthentic or Instagram could penalize you.
Narrow down on your target audience and create posts that speak right to them. Understanding your audience is one of the most important social media best practices that will make or break your account.
Plan Your Feed
An aesthetically pleasing Instagram feed is both captivating and hypnotizing. Create one by using an app such as The Preview App to plan out a feed that will draw in your viewers.
Relate To Your Followers
People want to feel understood, especially when it comes to emotions. Create emotional posts that really draw in followers that will engage with your posts and start some conversations in the comments.
Tell a memorable story that people will love, and make it a reoccurring event. Once you pull on the heart-strings of your followers, they will become dedicated to watching for more.
Do Not Overuse Hashtags
It is one thing to get creative with your Instagram hashtags, but it is another to overuse them. Instagram prefers its users to switch up the hashtags and not use the same ones in every post, if you do, you could get penalized.
Research for the best hashtags in your niche, then make a rotating list of applicable hashtags. This will keep things fresh and could also draw in more followers.
Stay Active
Once you create engagement, you need to be fully active with your followers by responding to their comments. This establishes you as more of a human than a robotic brand and gives you more credibility.
Learn More Social Media Best Practices To Boost Your Brand
It is important to stay on top of the latest in social media best practices, this will help you to beat your competition and create loyal customers that will help you to boost your brand.
Pay attention that social media best practices update frequently, so check out more articles in our blog to keep yourself up to speed on the latest information.
Feel you need some help to get started? Check out our pricing list for wholistic digital advertising blueprints, and help to boost your social media following.