Social media platforms are the preferred channel for a good majority of people to socialise and stay updated about what’s happening around the world. These platforms have billions of users and, therefore, represent a big opportunity for marketers. In fact, Facebook alone has 2.4 billion users. Just imagine how many people you can target if you leverage a few of these platforms.
Source: statista.com
However, not everyone who tries social media marketing is a success. It is quite competitive and a lot of marketers struggle to make a mark on these platforms. But, don’t get discouraged as we are here to help you with that. Here are some of the most effective social media marketing tips to help you stand out in the crowd.
9 Social Media Marketing Tips to Help You Up Your Social Game:
1. Post Targeted Content
This is the most important advice anyone can give you on how to excel at social media marketing. Create content specifically for your target audience.
Before you even start your social media marketing campaign, you need to understand who you want to target. So, do your research, define and understand your audience, and create customer personas, if possible.
You can start by analyzing your current social media audience. Use social media audience analysis tools to do so. And, once you know what your audience likes, you can create and post content that they are most likely to find useful.
2. Select the Right Platforms
A major decision for social media marketers is selecting the platforms where you want to be active. This should ideally include 3-4 of the best ones where your target audience is active. However, you should not aim to include a lot of platforms because that can be difficult to manage.
To make an informed decision, you must know what kind of people frequent each platform and what each platform is best known for.
For example, YouTube is best for video content of all types, while LinkedIn is the platform of choice for professionals. So, if you want to write expert content on topics from your industry, you might want to choose LinkedIn. And, if you think your audience will be more engaged by videos, then you can opt for YouTube.
Similarly, each social media platform is good for posting certain types of content and has a different audience demographic. Do your research and choose the one that you want to target.
3. Be Consistent
For social media marketers, it is very important to stay active and stay relevant. For this, you need to post frequently and consistently. With today’s audience, out of sight means out of mind. So, you need to maintain regularity when posting social media content.
Consistency is also important because the algorithms of such platforms favour accounts that post regularly and are more active.
Moreover, maintaining consistency in when you post gives your audience something to look forward to. They can expect fresh content from you on your typical posting days or times and this creates anticipation. This is one of the best ways to create a loyal follower base.
4. Create a Social Media Content Calendar
Adding to the point above, integrating social media scheduling tools into your strategy can significantly enhance your ability to plan and execute your social media marketing efforts. Creating a content calendar helps you plan your social media marketing better. You should have a plan in place with details on what you will post and when.
Ideally, you should have at least one week’s content ready in advance. This ensures that there are no last-minute errors and you maintain your posting frequency. It also helps you get a big picture idea of your content plan and distribute different types of content pieces throughout a specific period of time.
Here’s an example of our social media content calendar for your reference. We have columns for the day, time, type of content, platform, etc.
Source: influencermarketinghub.com
5. Use Hashtags
Hashtags are powerful tools that can help you amplify the effects of your social media marketing content. Hashtags help you reach a much larger and relevant audience.
On several platforms, like Instagram, people have the option to follow certain hashtags. This means that they are shown content that uses that hashtag even if they don’t follow the account. This is great for you as your content can reach beyond your followers to the people who follow the hashtags that you use.
Now that you know why you should use hashtags, let’s discuss how you can do so effectively. The key is to use the most relevant hashtags and the right amount of hashtags without overdoing it.
Different platforms have different limits set for how many hashtags you can use. So, stick to that limit or lower. You don’t necessarily have to use 30 hashtags, even if 30 are allowed.
Before selecting a hashtag, please consider the following:
- How popular is the hashtag?
- How much competition will you face if you use it?
- Is it relevant to your business or niche?
Once you have done your hashtag research, select a mix of hashtags. You can pick some of the popular ones and some relatively less popular but more relevant.
6. Leverage Influencers
Influencer marketing is like a catalyst that supercharges your social media marketing and takes it up a notch. Influencers can help you boost the ROI of your marketing efforts and drive better reach and engagement.
Here are some ways influencers can help you with your social media marketing:
- Improve your brand image and build audience trust in your brand.
- Amplify your content’s reach to their followers.
- Get higher engagement than you would have got on your own.
- Drive traffic to your website and even drive conversions.
Considering the benefits of Influencer Marketing, you should really include it in your social media marketing strategy. At least, that’s what all the smart marketers are doing these days. In fact, for ~30% of marketers, Influencer Marketing is an always-on marketing strategy and not a one-off thing.
Source: socialpubli.com
7. Interact and Network
Social media marketing is not limited to simply creating and posting content on social media. You need to do a lot more than that if you truly want to be successful with it.
One major part of social media marketing is engaging in online conversations both with your audience and with others in your niche. Start by replying to comments on your content and answer questions or simply show appreciation.
You can also use social media listening tools to keep track of your brand mentions and can engage in online conversations related to your brand.
This helps improve your audience’s experience with your brand and improves your brand image. If you are good and prompt with your replies, people will think of your brand as one that actually cares about its customers.
It does not end with that either. You should also engage in conversations with your peers and other industry experts. This helps you build connections and also establishes you as an industry expert if you provide value through such online conversations.
These connections will help you later if you are looking for collaborations and mutually-beneficial initiatives.
8. Experiment with Content Formats
Social media platforms provide a lot of options when it comes to content formats. From Stories to live videos, you have different options that you can choose from. We suggest experimenting with all of these and then using a good mix of them.
Each content format can be good for different purposes. Ephemeral content like Stories is very good for engaging your audience and promoting your other content. Live videos are great for hosting interviews or Q&A sessions that allow audience participation.
Similarly, different content formats offer different benefits. Make use of them and leverage them to your advantage.
9. Make Use of Social Media Analytics
Social media analytics will tell you whether your marketing efforts are successful or not. You can find tons of useful information and use it to fuel your future social media marketing strategy.
For example, you can find out what kind of content your audience prefers and then create more of it. You can also find trends that can help you identify your audience’s preferences. Use these insights to update your knowledge of your target audience and create more focused content for them.
Another important piece of information that you can gather is which platform works best for you. If there are certain platforms that are not giving you the desired results consistently, you can stop investing in them.
Over to You
These are tried-and-tested social media marketing tips that many marketers swear by. Use these tips to improve your social media campaigns and get higher success rates.
