The Top 5 Social Media Best Practices in 2023
BlueTone Media
BlueTone Media: Your Collaborative Partner in Crafting Results-Driven Experiences and Strategic Digital Marketing.
What is social media marketing?
The influence and power of social media are growing rapidly worldwide –?especially so?in the U.S.?In fact, social media accounted for?33% of all digital consumer spending in 2022, according to Hootsuite.
This growth opens up valuable marketing opportunities for businesses, large AND small.?
However, truly effective social media marketing is extremely hard to come by.?
Simply dropping the occasional post on your company’s social media page is not going to bring in more potential customers.?
Furthermore, even the most captivating social media advertisement will likely flop if you haven’t yet established a strong social media presence through regular posting and engagement.
Social media marketing requires a more concerted strategy.
When we talk about?social media marketing (SSM), we are referring to all the unique ways you can use social media platforms to promote your business, establish your brand, boost website traffic, and drive conversions and sales.
The Top 5 Social Media Marketing Best Practices
1. DEFINE YOUR GOALS AND TARGET AUDIENCE
Without a clear concept of the audience you intend to reach and the results you hope to achieve, all of your social media efforts will be in vain.?
Every choice you encounter when developing your social media marketing strategy will come back to your target audience.
Once you know your audience, the next step is to determine WHAT exactly you want your audience to do.?
Do you want to gain more followers or increase website clicks? Do you want to gather stronger leads or simply build brand awareness??
No matter your social media goals, they must be SMART.
That is, they need to be Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Relevant, and Timely.?
Possibly the most important of these qualities is “Measurable.” Without consistent key performance indicators (KPIs), you will have no way to track the success (or failure) of your social media efforts.?
2. CREATE AND SHARE ENGAGING CONTENT
With the multitude of content available to consumers on social media, it is critical to create content that is truly useful or interesting to your target audience.
Already determined your SMM goals and audience? You are halfway there!
Now, use those audience preferences and SMART goals to identify the types of content that will be most appropriate and drive the intended results.?
If you are building your social media presence from the ground up, you may want to start with educational and branding posts to get the word out about your product or services!
If you’ve already amassed a good number of followers, create posts that encourage followers to engage in the comments or click to view and purchase your product.
Make sure you pay attention to trends in your audience’s content preferences as well. According to Hubspot, consumers generally prefer?short-form video content?and?content that is “funny” or “relatable.”
No matter the nature of your business, you will most likely want to incorporate a variety of content. In addition to traditional photo or video content, consider trying boosted (or promoted) posts. And don’t forget to throw a couple of social ads in the mix.
领英推荐
3. CONSISTENCY IS KEY
We cannot emphasize enough the importance of regular, consistent social posting. Consistency is critical for establishing a strong social media following and a brand your potential customers will remember.?
This means two things…
First, you must maintain your brand consistency, creating posts that adopt similar styles and colors and feature recognizable people within your company.?
Second, you must develop – and stick to –?a strategic posting routine.
To remain top-of-mind with your target audience, you must produce ample content each week. Posting frequently increases your chances of popping up on potential customers’ news feeds.?
But keeping up with the high pace of social media requires dedication.?
The best way to ensure you achieve an appropriate posting frequency is to plan your social media content ahead of time. Fill out a content calendar a couple of months in advance, take your time creating high-quality content, and use a scheduling platform like Hootsuite or SocialPilot to pace yourself.
NOTE:?Remember, while posting on social media regularly is important, quality still trumps quantity every time.?
4. MONITOR AND ENGAGE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE
One of the only drawbacks of pre-scheduling social media posts is that it occasionally encourages marketers to become lackadaisical with audience engagement.?
It is not enough to simply make a post and let it do its thing.?
Social media is designed for interaction. So, it makes sense that to be effective on social media, you must actively keep up with your audience.
Get into the habit of?social listening, or using social media to determine and evaluate the general sentiment of your brand, industry, competitors, and audience.?
And if you receive direct feedback from customers – positive or negative – make sure you respond promptly and courteously. Just like reviews on Google, social media comments and reviews can have a major impact on consumer perception of your brand.
Many business owners may opt to ignore or “hide” negative feedback they receive on social media rather than addressing it head on. However, Facebook’s algorithms are not blind to such actions. Hitting that “hide” button could actually do you more harm than good.
Just taking a few minutes to write a positive, respectful response could mean the difference between losing or securing a whole line of customers.
5. TRACK AND MEASURE YOUR RESULTS
As with most other forms of marketing, social media growth cannot happen without extensive trial and error. The only way to improve your social media strategy and campaigns is to take full advantage of social media analytics.
Key metrics to track include…
Fortunately, social media platforms have incorporated comprehensive analytics tools that provide all of this data and more!
BlueTone Media | Your Local Wilmington, NC Marketing Experts
Whether you operate a small business or a large company, you can make social media work in your favor in 2023 with…
No matter what, do not remain stagnant in your social media marketing strategy. Social media platforms are continually changing, and so must our marketing methods.
Need a hand with your social media or other marketing needs??BlueTone Media specializes in modern digital marketing practices – from social media and content marketing to PPC and SEO.
READ MORE:?