What are the Best Strategies for Social Media Marketing?
In our last blog post, we talked about the importance of creating a Social Media Marketing Strategy to achieve your business goals. Today, we’re looking at some of the best strategies for social media marketing.
Social media is a wonderful tool and allows businesses to attract new customers and interact with their target audience in ways that haven’t been possible before. Most businesses already know this and are aware that they need to be active on social media, which is great but also means that it’s increasingly difficult to get noticed amongst all the content out there.
Here are some great strategies that will ensure you stand out from the crowd in the best way possible!
Create quality content
High-quality content never goes out of style. In the midst of all the noise on social media, fresh, good quality content will always have an audience.
To distinguish between content that you’re posting for the sake of being present on social media, and quality content, it’s helpful to consider what you are contributing to the conversation. If you’re simply adding to the noise, your post is unlikely to capture anyone’s attention. Instead, always keep your audience in mind and ensure that your social media content benefits them in some way- whether it’s informative, educational, or simply entertaining.
Prioritise genuine engagement
A good social media strategy involves engagement. Many businesses already know this and use tactics such as encouraging their audience to ‘tag a friend’ or ‘like and share’ a post, in the hope of playing social media algorithms.
However social media users – and the platforms themselves – are aware of this and won’t be fooled by this sort of content for long. It’s far better to start genuine conversations and post thoughtful, engaging content that fits with your brand voice.
Experiment with format
Visual content tends to garner more engagement than solely written text posts.
If your business doesn’t have a strong visual component, that doesn’t mean you can’t use visuals to connect with your audience. Think outside the box and experiment with the format of your posts, utilising photos, videos and infographics alongside text posts.
It is also vital that you analyse your social media posts regularly and experiment with posts at different times of day, or night. You may find that social media posts before 9 am get good engagement, but those posted in the evening don’t seem to gather any attention.
By analysing how your social media strategy is performing you can make any necessary tweaks to your strategy as soon as they are needed.
Focus on one platform at a time
When starting out on social media as a business, the temptation is to try to be everywhere all at once but it’s easy to become overwhelmed or inconsistent that way.
You may start out vowing to post daily on each of the ten platforms you’ve signed up to but quickly realise that’s unsustainable long-term without other areas of your business suffering.
You may choose to hand over the running of your social media to a dedicated member of your team or an external agency like Shine on Digital.
If you’re just starting out on social media and feeling daunted by the prospect, it’s a good idea to set up profiles on the major platforms but focus your energies on the social media platform where your target audience spends most of their time.
Be consistent
As with many things in life, when it comes to posting on social media- consistency is key.
Decide on a posting schedule for your chosen platforms that fits in with your goals and is realistic and achievable and then and stick to it. This is where having a social media marketing strategy comes in handy.
If you’re worried that you’re not going to have the time to post on social media regularly, you may want to consider social media management.
Have a plan!
If you’re posting on social media sporadically, with no clear idea of why or what you’re trying to achieve it’s going to be very difficult to measure your success or understand what’s working well for your business and what isn’t. That’s why a Social Media Marketing Strategy is helpful, as it gives you something to refer back to and aim for.
A crucial thing to remember when thinking about your social media marketing strategy is that behind the numbers are real people with emotions, interests and needs. They’re actively seeking high-quality content to connect with, whether it’s informative, entertaining or simply solves a problem they currently have.
We can help
Here at Shine on Digital, we love helping businesses like yours get noticed online and we understand that good social media marketing is about more than just follower numbers – it’s about real results. So if you want to make social media work for you, get in touch or call us on 01706 482017. We’d love to hear from you.