Top 16 Social Media Marketing Hacks you should take note of!

Social media is an indispensable means of online marketing to reach your target audience. You might be that person who had invested a lot in Social media marketing but have not yielded the expected payback. There may be several reasons why this is happening. In this article, I will be providing you with the top 16 social media marketing hacks which you should be aware of in order to get the best out of your investment.

Instagram = Maximum engagement

Instagram has the highest engagement of all Social media platforms. When compared to other platforms, Instagram photos have 36% more Likes and Engagement. Here are a few valuable tips to boost your Instagram engagement:

1. Be genuine
2. Post photos consistently
3. Stick with one filter
4. Post stories regularly
5. Get feedback via stickers, polls, and questions
6. Keep track of follower fatigue
7. Mention others
8. Examine its different sorts of video features

Hashtags are pivotal

Do not shove innumerous hashtags. Add only a bunch of relevant ones. Here are a few actionable tips to use hashtags effectively:

1. Be heedful of customary hashtag etiquette corresponding to the social networks.
2. Use hashtags that befit your brand
3. Keep the hashtags short and interesting
4. #CapitalizeTheFirstLetterOfEachWord
5. Engage hashtags in twitter chats
6. Research hashtags trends on Twitter
7. Create new hashtag sets every time you post

Make it visual

Throw more imageries such as photos, videos, and infographics rather than text. Here are a few practical tips for better image-inclusive content marketing:

1. Pick colourful images.
2. Employ a perfect blend of funny and informative images.
3. Avoid those cliché stock images.

Not applicable to social media marketing, but to other digital marketing platforms:

1. Keyword-optimize your images.
2. Include an image for every 100 words or so.

Frequency and Consistency

It is easier said than done. But you know that's the truth. Both frequency and consistency go hand in hand. Writing one lengthy post per month would be of less help in strengthening your digital footprint. Instead, if you manage to write 4 short write-ups per month and post it every week, that would boost your engagement way more. Here's how you can achieve consistency in social media marketing:

1. Recognize the ins and outs of each online platform and their audience.
2. Construct your brand identity and establish your voice and make sure you stick to it in all sorts of contents you post.
3. Show your users that you are active by producing content regularly.
4. Share carefully curated brand-related content.

Prefer native videos

Share Facebook native videos rather than sharing YouTube videos. The reasons being:

1. The videos will be saved in a gallery which would be easily accessible to the users in the future.
2. A case study found that native videos have a 135% increased reach and better engagement than those hosted via other platforms.
3. Both Facebook and Twitter offer easy-peasy video editing features.
4. Employing native videos provides you with more accurate analytics.

Sharing Business Pages on Personal profiles

Sharing links of social media business pages on various platforms such as Facebook, Insta or LinkedIn in your personal profiles enable you to get significant reach. Also, if you want to share something, post it first on your page because the users will have a chance to interact directly with the page. After a considerable time, if you wish, you may share that post on your personal profile, because Facebook considers them as lukewarm news and thus gets lesser visibility.

Always use CAPTIONS on videos!

It greatly helps people who are:

1. Non-native language users
2. Hearing-impaired

This expands the ambit of your range of user engagement.

Engage with users on comments

Put your efforts to respond to all comments posted by the users. Instead of merely responding, pose leading questions. This creates a personal relationship with the users and significantly increases engagement automatically.

Keep providing FREE VALUE!

Be generous in offering free tips to users. This will bring them back to you when they are in need. This consistent need generation is what will gradually fetch you business.

Schedule your posts

There are effective tools like Buffer and Hootsuite with which you can schedule posts in bulk and not worry about it then onwards.

Engage with relevant hashtags

On Instagram, go on a post hunting safari that uses relevant hashtags and engage with those posts by liking and sharing them. Those Instagram users might, in turn, engage with your posts which will rapidly raise your engagement.

Post on prime time

Suggested time to post on:

●     Facebook - 9:00 AM when people go online for the first time during the day.

●     Instagram - between 8:00 & 9:00 PM when people are at the cessation of the day.

●     LinkedIn - between 10:00 AM & 12:00 PM, when they start hating their jobs.

●     Twitter - the best times to tweet is between 6:00 & 9:00 PM.

Brand guidelines

Also referred to as “brand standards”, “style guide”, brand guidelines are a set of rules which illustrate how your brand works. They include design, composition, vision, look and feel of the brand. Develop your unique brand guidelines which reflect the nature and utility of your brand.

Minor animations

Using animations seizes the attention of your audience. Although overdoing it may distract too much and spoil the engagement.

80:20 rule for Facebook ads

The 80:20 rule means that 20% of your input is responsible for 80% of your success. For instance, in Facebook ad campaigns, out of 10 ads that you publish, only 2 would become an enormous success that contributes to an excellent return.

Link your Facebook and Instagram accounts

This means that when you post on Instagram, the post gets automatically published on Facebook too, which saves you a lot of time and data. You could add Instagram advertisements to Facebook advertisement campaigns through both Ads Manager and Power Editor by just checking the “Instagram” box under the ad set’s Placement section. Businesses have observed that this helps them gain more reach more with little added effort.

Any help?

Do you have more social media marketing hacks? Do you have nay questions? Do you need help with your social media marketing? Comment below!