20 Tangible Tips for Your Social Media Marketing

A lot of things may be in flux in our world today, but one thing that is very clear when it comes to your business is that social media marketing isn’t going ANYWHERE! Social media is a huge part of our lives and still continues to grow in its reach every day.

In fact, every single second, 11 more people in the world begin using social media for the first time!

Whether you love or hate it, social media is here to stay… and it’s a necessity for your business these days. 

Thankfully, Using Social Media Effectively For Your Business Doesn’t Have To Be As Overwhelming As It May Seem At First!

With a solid plan in place and some simple dos and don’ts in your toolbox, you can absolutely navigate the ever-expanding world of social media marketing.

And, I don’t know about you, but when it comes to maneuvering something I’m slightly uncomfortable with, an easy-to-follow guide always gives me a much-needed confidence boost. 

So with that in mind, let’s dive in with some tangible tips for your social media marketing…

10 Practices To Put In Place For Your Social Media Marketing

1. Add Your Own Personality and Voice to Social Media – Your audience wants to hear from YOU and know what makes your products or services unique.
2. Use a Variety of Images in Your Posts – Make use of engaging graphics including photos, quote cards, and infographics when it comes to creating your posts. After all, variety is the spice of life (and of engaging social media)!
3. Make Use of Video in Your Feed – Again, your audience wants to hear from you! Don’t be afraid to get in front of the camera and talk to them.
4. Consider the Best Time to Post to Your Accounts – If your posts are appearing at 3 am, no one is seeing them. Most scheduling apps and platforms can give you insightful recommended times of day to post. You can also judge the best time to post based on when your audience has engaged most on past posts or through platform analytics.
5. Promote Yourself – There are plenty of ways to make your services and products known on social media without coming across as overly sales-y or pushy.
6. Offer Information & Value – In addition to selling, you always want your social media to be about providing value to your audience. This establishes you as an authority in your field and builds your relationship with potential clients.
7. Regularly Interact with Your Audience – Speaking of relationship building, you need to regularly engage with your audience on social media. This means answering DMs and comments on your feed in addition to commenting on others’ posts.
8. Maintain Consistency in Your Brand – Make sure that your brand image is consistent across your posts and platforms. Your audience needs this consistency to remember you and establish a relationship with you.
9. Give Credit and Show Gratitude – Be generous with tagging other businesses and clients on social media. This is fantastic for relationship building, and what you give will eventually come back to you!
10. Have Complete and Active Profiles – Incomplete profiles don’t look professional, and they often make people question whether a business is still operational.

10 Pitfalls To Avoid In Your Social Media Marketing

1. Don’t Waste Your Time Posting Content Manually – One of the first tasks you need to accomplish when planning social media for your business is to set up a social media scheduler. There are plenty of options out there – many of which have free versions. 
2. Remember to Add Those Links – Don’t forget if your post mentions a link, you need to add it to your bio or to the post itself.
3. Don’t Overshare or Undershare Content – Find a balance in the number of times you post that feels authentic but still keeps your audience engaged. You don’t need to post 5 times a day, but you also need to post more than once a week. For many platforms, once a day is recommended.
4. Proofread Your Posts – The occasional misspelling or grammatical error is bound to happen, but consistently posting poorly written content really reflects badly on your business.
5. Avoid Excessively Using Hashtags – Hashtags are a valuable component to many social media marketing platforms, but overusing them isn’t favorable to most algorithms at this point.
6. Don’t Be Afraid to Repurpose Content – Yes, your content needs to remain fresh, and no, you don’t need to post the exact same thing over and over again. BUT you can repurpose content from blogs, podcasts, etc. 
7. Focus Less on Your Number of Followers – Of course, you want your number of followers to be growing, but what’s more important is having the right followers for your business and building lasting relationships with those people.
8. Check the Facts Before You Share – If you’re sharing an article or statistic, be sure to check your facts and stick with reliable sources. Sharing incorrect information looks unprofessional and can also be harmful.
9. Don’t Assume the Same Content Works on All Platforms – You may need to create different content for different social media platforms depending on what you are posting and how relevant it is to the format and your audience on each platform.
10. Focus on More Than Just Social Media Marketing – I know we’ve spent this whole blog post talking about social media marketing, but don’t let it overtake your business or your overall marketing strategy. It’s important, but it’s not where you need to spend all of your time or money when it comes to marketing!

If you need help with your social media marketing, the team at Amazing OBM would love to connect! You can start by scheduling a FREE 30-minute consultation. We are happy to chat, offer you some valuable tips, and determine if we are a good fit for one another in future endeavors!