By Victoria Cross, Social Media Expert
Social media is a powerful tool that can spread your message to friends, family, clients, and the general public. When used correctly, it can communicate the right message and boost brand awareness. Used incorrectly, it can hurt your reputation and cause serious damage.
We’ve put together 5 Social Media Best Practices to help you in your posting journey.
1) Set Realistic and SMART Goals:
It can be easy to set ambitious goals, but it’s important to make sure they’re attainable. Getting to 60,000 followers is great, but if you only have 2,000 followers, that’s probably not going to happen in a year’s time. Make goals that are SMART. SMART Goals are:
Specific
Measurable
Achievable
Relevant and
Time Based
There is no point in putting time, effort, and potentially money into a campaign unless you have a goal and direction for said campaign. Following this outline should help you achieve success (Web FX)!
2) Find Your Voice:
Who are you trying to reach? Find out where your target audience is located and how they communicate with each other. Social media can be a fun and niche place to communicate with your customers. However, not everyone’s brand is going to be able to pull off a Wendy’s Twitter personality. You want the way you post content on social media to fit with your already created brand voice. Otherwise, your audience may start to distrust you; this could lead to a loss in followers and customers (Web FX).
3) Keep an Eye on The Competition:
Most businesses out there are not a monopoly, so you probably have some competition fighting for your audience’s attention. It’s important to keep an eye on what they’re doing; if you don’t, they may just get the upper hand. Following their social platforms can help you keep tabs on what they’re doing and see if there are any gaps in your own strategy. It can also help you identify what not to do. When you track what their audience has to say about them, positive and negative, you can make sure that you’re taking steps to avoid similar complaints or issues.
Here are some things to check (Hootsuite):
- What networks are they on?
- How big is their audience?
- How often do they post?
- How much do they engage (shares, likes, and comments)?
- What are they good at?
- What are they not so good at?
- What threats do they pose?
4) Engage with Your Audience:
You do a lot of work to make sure your posts are worth interacting with; it shouldn’t stop there. Make sure you’re responding to comments, DMs, and tags. Engage with your audience and send real responses; interact and humanize your brand. According to Sprout Social, 30% of millennials engage with brands on social on a monthly basis. Younger generations are becoming savvy to the idea of directly reaching out on social to connect with brands; it’s up to you to ensure people get a response.
5) Keep Track of Your Analytics:
After you’ve created your goals for each social channel and implemented the rest of our suggestions, you want to make sure it’s successful. So, take a look at your analytics. Each social channel has at least a basic view of your analytics that help you track engagement and reach per post – as well as best times to reach your audience. Be flexible and adjust. If you notice that some of your posts don’t perform as well as others, change your approach. BONUS: If you’re hoping to track more than what’s available on your business analytics page, you can use software programs like Sprinklr, Hootsuite, or Later for a more in-depth look at your social performance.
We’re just scraping the surface; there are tons of tips and tricks out there to push your social media forward and to help you reach your goals. Running a successful social media brand requires a lot of effort, but don’t forget to have fun! The best way to reach your engagement goals is to show your audience you’re educated on the topics at hand but relatable. They’ll appreciate that.
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References:
- https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-best-practices/
- https://blog.hootsuite.com/social-media-best-practices/
- https://www.webfx.com/blog/social-media/social-media-best-practices/
