The 9 Best Practices to Boost Your Social Media Presence

So, we hear you’d like to be a social media whizz? Social media campaigns can improve your visibility on search engines like Google while enhancing your brand, selling your products, driving traffic to your website, and helping you serve both new and current customers.

We’ve gathered together 9 best practices to boost your social media presence and to get your business out there on social media. It’s not just about posting every now and then… to get your brand out there and recognised, you have to have a plan!

What’s your focus?

Of course, we get it. You want to use social media to better your company and increase profits. However there are so many more things to consider.

Think about the steps you’re taking and why you’re doing it. Are you looking for brand awareness, new leads, engagement, higher rate of app installs, or would you simply like to increase your web traffic? These might even be things you haven’t considered yet!

Who are you targeting?

Rather than considering anyone and everyone a potential member of your target audience, really think about who is more likely to show interest in your product and who your products/services cater to. 

Social media platforms can be a tremendous way of reaching out to and connecting with these very people, but it’s crucial you reach out to them using the right platform. Understand their age, location, interests and common behaviours.

Planning and preparing

You (hopefully!) might now have an idea on some of the topics you would like to discuss across your social media channels to grab the interest of your audience. The question you might be asking yourself is, when and how often should I post content? What if I don’t post enough, or what if I post too much? Whilst the aim is to post relevant content on a sensible basis, without your posts seeming too spammy, you will definitely need to plan and prepare your posts.

Again, think about your audience and their habits. You might want to avoid posting at busy times when they’re most likely to not be active online. They might be on the school run, at work or even out shopping. 

We recommend posting around 3-4 times a week, but this depends entirely on the nature of your business. Whilst Twitter is very fast-moving with brand new content constantly flowing, you can get away with (and may benefit from) posting slightly more often.

Create a ‘content calendar’ whereby you choose the days and exact timings of the week to post, also to which channels they should appear on. 

Top tip: Different audiences will be on different social channels. Tailor your content based on each channel, whether its tone of voice, colloquialisms, length or call to actions.

It’s all about the content!

Probably the most important aspect of social media – it’s all about the content!

Very often, we see companies solely posting about their products and services with a not-so-very-subtle focus of just wanting people to buy or sell their service. As great as this is, it’s just as important to make your content fun, fabulous and flowy, to show your brand personality rather than being too ‘sales’ focused.

The type of content within your social media post is also super important. Your audience’s attention span is getting shorter, that’s why it’s more important than ever to grab their attention with interesting facts, videos, GIFs, infographics, animations… the list is endless.

Post regular updates about exciting things upcoming, new members to the team or even a bit of #MondayMotivation to get others through their long week. People are more likely to react to engaging posts like these, so guess what? The more your connections react to your content, the more likely you are to show up on their timeline in future. A win-win!

Top tip: Keep your content short, sweet and informative. If you feel like your post drags on a bit, simply add in a few line spaces to separate the text so it’s easier for the user to read.

Monitor ‘hot’ trends in your industry

Social media can be used as a foundation for discussions in your industry. Keep up-to-date with relevant trends by staying on the radar with top news, which will also give you some ideas for fresh content – also great for your organic SEO!

Sign up to Google Alerts to receive regular content relevant to your industry, just by adding your own keyword(s). With Google Alerts, you can choose to receive emails on a daily, weekly or even real-time basis.

Hashtags, hashtags and more hashtags!

We’ve all been on Instagram at one time or another and searched #mrshinch, #gymspiration or something along those lines. Hashtags are useful if you are looking to increase brand awareness through impressions and reach. One thing to remember is to not overuse your hashtags. Limit the amount you use based on the channel you are using it for.Facebook: Hashtags aren’t just for Twitter and Instagram, use them for Facebook too! Just be sure to limit to around 3 hashtags per post.

Twitter: Contrary to popular opinion, we suggest only using around 2 hashtags on Twitter. As Twitter is so fast-moving, you want your content to be seen, rather than missed. Some companies make the mistake of cramming every hashtag they can possibly think of within their tweet, a common post that Twitter users will scroll straight past.

Instagram: Whilst we recommend using up to 30 hashtags, you can get away with going to town on Instagram! However, be sure to keep the content all very relevant.

Top tip: Try to incorporate your hashtags within your text to appear less spammy and more relevant, rather than using an irrelevant assortment of hashtags underneath the post.

Social media scheduling

As we touched on above, the right content needs to go out at the right time. Scheduling is  a great idea for posts that are very time-specific for your audience. 

Scheduling tools allow you to schedule content in advance, so even when you’re out-of-office or anywhere in the world, your social channels are still running smoothly!

Whilst we use (and highly recommend) HeyOrca for it’s ease of use, simplicity and reliability, there are some others you can use too.

(Something very important to remember is to keep on top of your social channels, even whilst using scheduling, as these tools will only post your content calendar, rather than take complete care of your messages and comments!)

Analyse and adapt

So, your content has gone out. What next?

Well, you might have planned out and analysed your audience and their behaviours already, but analytics will put your judgement to the test! Be sure to go back on previous posts to see the engagement they received. Not only will this help you understand what went well, but it will show you how to improve next time. Think about what content went well with your followers, what didn’t spark so much interest or what days/times suited your audience best.

Paid social media ads

How many times a week do you scroll past something on your timeline that says ‘Sponsored’? Most likely very often! This is called a paid ad, which might benefit you if your content needs that extra ‘push’.

You can choose the exact audience your post goes out to by selecting their demographics, such as age, gender, page likes/follows and their location too.

Facebook has a very handy tool that estimates how many people your ad will go out to, allowing you to plan your budget and foresee the outcome, although it’s important to remember this is only a prediction.

There is a ‘Boost’ option which is a quick win by putting budget behind your organic posts, although we recommend using the ads manager as it has more functionality, whereas paid ads have different best practices to organic posts, such as testing and no hashtags.

Well, how can we help with your social media presence?

If all of the above has gone over your head, there’s no need to worry. Our social media marketing process ensures that your business gets a social media marketing campaign specifically tailored to your business’ goals.

If you’re interested in how your business could benefit from expert social media marketing to boost your social media presence, or have any further enquiries, please do get in touch.