When it comes to creating social media content, the amount of knowledge and choices can seem a bit overwhelming. How often should you post? What kind of posts should you create? How do you schedule out media content in advance? Which social media platforms should you post on? The questions are endless.
Happily, our social media experts love sharing their knowledge on social media marketing, so we compiled their tips and best practices all about social media content. If you’re unsure of how your company can create engaging, optimized social media content, read on!
One of the most common questions we hear about social media marketing is, “What should I post?” While that may seem like an easy question to answer, it’s actually quite broad and complex. Each social media platform has different media content capabilities and strategies – for instance, the blog link you post on Facebook isn’t going to get much (if any) traction if you post it on Instagram.
Every piece of content you post should consider your overall strategy, goals, and target audience. While there are a million variations of social media content out there, they fall into a few basic types of content:
No matter how much you think you know about social media, there’s always room to grow. Because technology and social media platforms are constantly evolving, best practices are always changing. One of the best things you can do to improve your content marketing strategy is to stay up-to-date on the latest social media best practices. Here are a few big ones:
Promotion, sharing, and interacting – these are the three parts of a balanced social media content strategy. Too often, businesses make the mistake of only talking about their products and services. This gets boring quickly and doesn’t encourage conversation with your audience, which is what social media is all about.
The Rule of Thirds is all about striking a balance between promoting your products and services, sharing ideas and news from other sources, and building personal interactions with your customers. Not only will this help you build your audience and keep them engaged, but it will keep your social content fresh and add variety to the types of content you post.
In the over-saturated world of social media, it’s important to stand out, and a balanced social media strategy will allow you to build an audience and keep them engaged.
It’s not enough to just be “on” social media and post for the sake of posting. Finding your voice and figuring out what your audience is interested in is also key.
Relevance is the overlap between what you want to say and what your audience wants to talk about. Focus on keywords that your audience is searching for and use social listening to learn about your audience’s needs and wants.
Also, remember that social media algorithms are more interested in how much people engage with your content, not how much you publish. It’s better to have less content with higher quality than to have more content with a lower quality.
Do you sometimes see pages that post five times a day for three days straight, and then go silent for a week? We’ve seen it too, and we’re here to tell you that it’s not good practice.
Posting consistently not only improves engagement, but it also keeps your audience happier. If your customers know you post new products every Friday at noon, they’re more likely to return to your page to get the content they’re looking for. You can use the analytics tools within your social platforms to see what days of the week and times of day work best for your business, so you can space out your posts appropriately.
We’ve already mentioned how important having visual social media content is for your business, but it’s worth mentioning again.
Why? Visual content drives engagement. In fact, Facebook posts with images get 2.3 times more engagement than those without.
Visual content is also more memorable, which is really important if you want people to remember your brand and your products. Studies have shown that after three days, people recall 65 percent of visual content versus only 10 percent of written content. I don’t know about you, but I’d like more than 10 percent of the people I talk with to remember me.
One caveat: make sure your visuals are high quality. No one wants to see a blurry picture of your office lunchroom—they’d rather see a high-quality image of the entire office. If you don’t have someone in-house to help you create visual assets, consider hiring a professional so you can get the best quality visuals possible. For DIYers, you can also use tools like Canva to create social media content specifically catered to different platforms.
People love brands who are authentic, personable, and make them feel something. If you’re robotically pumping out the same uninspired content over and over, people are going to notice. And not in a good way.
This goes back to the concept of “don’t post for the sake of posting.” People will remember how you made them feel, so show them that there are real people behind your business. Don’t be afraid to have fun with it too!
A social media calendar is a great tool for helping you stay organized with posting. Not only does it allow you to keep track of posts months in advance, but it can also help you find a focus for each month or plan your content to support other marketing campaigns.
More and more people are turning to social media as their preferred channel for customer service and support. Whether you’re responding to positive or negative feedback, having an established response plan is critical to avoid any problems.
Thanking customers for compliments lets them know that you appreciate them, and responding quickly and sensitively to problems and complaints can help you avoid major marketing fails. Remember, time is of the essence, and you should always reply within 24 hours (at most) of receiving the message.
Here’s an example of one of our local Lancaster clients—Tangles Salon—following best practices with their social media marketing. Let’s look at a few of the things they’ve nailed with their content:
Awesome social media content does much more than just engage people. It’s also a great way to improve your Search Engine Optimization efforts and boost your overall online presence. While many of the same basic principles apply, each platform is a little different in how you should optimize and make the most of your content.
Let’s look at each of the major platforms one at a time.
Facebook is the largest social media platform on the market today—if you don’t have a Facebook page for your business, you’re already doing yourself a disservice. Here are a few things you can do to make sure your Facebook Business Page is well-optimized and has good SEO practices in place:
After Google, YouTube is the second most-used search engine on the internet. If your marketing plan includes video content (which it should), make sure you follow a few of these social media best practices to make sure your content shows up in searches:
As a highly visual platform, Instagram can sometimes be difficult for search engines. Instagram actually blocks user images from appearing in search results, but there are a few things you can do to make sure you have your best SEO marketing foot forward for Instagram:
Twitter is a great social media platform for sharing content in a timely manner. It’s very fast paced, but if optimized correctly, your social media content can get a nice boost from trending topics:
LinkedIn is a great space for professionals and businesses to connect and share content. It’s not just for people seeking jobs! You can utilize your business’s LinkedIn page to help connect with other businesses and potential clients. Here are a few ways to improve your rankings:
Pinterest is another visual-heavy social media platform. It may not be necessary or relevant for every business, but it can be a powerhouse for promoting content and products when used correctly:
Need to keep your content and posting schedule organized? Download our free social media content calendar template. Our Lancaster digital agency can help plan and manage your social media marketing. Just give us call.