As marketing specialists, we tend to use social media as part of full digital marketing campaign. However, these golden rules are also beneficial if social media is the only option that you have time for. Following our advice will ensure that you achieve success with your social media activity and all importantly engage with your target audience.

Where’s your audience?
You may be more comfortable using Facebook but posting on this platform will not achieve your goals if the audience you are targeting are hanging out on LinkedIn or Instagram. Do some research on where your audience are ‘hanging out’ for maximum effectiveness. If your business is b2b then LinkedIn is the obvious place for you to be posting.  You don’t have to limit yourself to one channel. Posting on multiple social media channels can be advantageous for social media engagement as well as SEO (more on this in a future blog or contact us if you would like to know more now).

Quality over Quantity
Remember how you feel when a brand is constantly bombarding you with posts on your social media pages. You would most likely block, hide or unfollow the company. Remember this when you are the brand. Your posts need to be high quality, meaningful and relevant to your audience in order for them to engage with you. We recommend only posting once a day and deciding how many days a week you are able to post and sticking to this schedule.

Don’t forget the 80/20 Rule
Social media is a great tool for content marketing but in order to engage with your audience you need the high quality content we mentioned above but also to ‘not sell’ in your posts. Keep in mind that 80% of your content should be non-promotional if you want to retain and build your social media following.

Timing is Everything
This is probably the most common rule that we see being broken. We get it, social media may not be your priority, so you only have time to post when you find time in your busy day. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be the same time as your audience are online and ready to see your quality post. Again, do some research to understand when is the optimal time to reach your audience. This may vary according to the social media channel you are targeting. If you are not available to post at these optimal times, there are solutions to this problem that we can assist with. Please get in touch if you would like more information.

Don’t Over-Tag
All of our rules are designed to ensure that you do not disengage your target audience. This includes ensuring that you do not over-tag your posts. Using ten different “follow me” hashtags is a social media ‘don’t’. Restrict yourself again to a few quality useful hashtags. Always think about your target audience and what they are searching for. You may also get some tips from looking at your competitors posts.

Join the Conversation
Social media is an online interaction just like having a face-to-face conversation. To really find success you need to engage with your audience. Therefore, when someone asks a question or makes a comment, you need to respond. Whether the feedback is positive or negative, do not leave it unanswered. Even a bad comment, review can be turned into a positive.

 

Social media can be an extremely effective marketing tool for your business when done correctly. We hope that these 5 golden rules can help you achieve digital success on your chosen social media channels. If you need more information on any or all of the above, please feel free to reach out to us.