Social Media For Business: An Easy Guide (Part 2 of 3)
Best Practices for Social Posts
Now that you've read
Part 1: Getting Started With Social Media, it's time to learn some tips to get the most out of your accounts and potentially reach the most people.
SET GOALS.
The goal has to be more than just having an account.
Do you want to get more sales or create some kind of social awareness/cause? You have to make sure you flesh out what you're trying to achieve first, otherwise your message won't be focused and that could be a deterrent for new followers. They need to know what your pages are about. In the beginning, it's good to try some things out and monitor how each post performs so you can see what works, and more importantly, what doesn't work (we'll go into more detail about this in PART 3 of our series next week).
PLAN. OPTIMIZE. SCHEDULE.
These are 3 key factors for creating success and less frustration in the long run for managing your accounts.
Try to plan your posts ahead of time. Last minute items can get very hectic, especially when it comes to planning seasonal promos and campaigns.
Doing this will allow you to optimize your time and create batches of posts at once. This will help with workflow and scheduling. Below are some app suggestions that will allow you to "set and forget" your post - days, weeks, or, on the rare occasion, months in advance.
WTE Picks: Social Media Management Tools
RESOURCE: Tech.co has a handy tool to help you
pick the best management tool for your business.
BLEND YOUR MESSAGING.
Your followers don't always want to have just ads or promos in their faces.
Change it up every once in a while to show them something different. Determine what would be appropriate to personalize your business for your followers and create a mix of interest and intrigue. This also helps your business look more authentic and trustworthy, rather than simply looking to make a quick sale. If it’s appropriate for your business, add calls-to-action in your posts and stories to get feedback from your followers.
Not only does this improve your engagement rates, but it helps your followers feel like they are a part of your page and have a voice.
ENGAGEMENT.
Unfortunately, you can’t just put up a post and expect the likes and comments to come flooding in. To get authentic, meaningful follower engagement, you’ll need to do some additional work. One common method of getting quality engagement is seeking out your ideal audience. You can do this by searching through hashtags that are relevant to your business, and then interacting with other users who use those hashtags on their own posts. Like and comment on their posts, and maybe give them a follow if it’s appropriate for your type of business. This will, at the very least, put your page on their radar. If you interact with them often, they will most likely return the favor!
Another common method, as mentioned earlier, is
adding a call-to-action to your posts and especially stories. On Instagram, you can put quizzes, Q and A’s, and polls on your story.
This catches your follower’s attention and it almost turns your story into a fun little game.
HASHTAGS.
We always think more hashtags means better, but that’s actually not the case. You want to make sure to use hashtags that go to your target audience or hop on trending hashtags to get you in front of new viewers. We usually suggest using a hashtag that isn't a common one with millions of posts attached to it.
The current rule of thumb is to search for hashtags that are being used on 10k-250k posts. An exception to this rule would be for your own personalized hashtags. This could be #YourBusinessName or #YourProductName, so when someone searches that tag, you’ll be the first one to pop up.
While it’s good to re-use certain hashtags on each post, make sure you switch the rest up every couple posts. Apps like Instagram now see posts with the exact same hashtags as spam, and you could ultimately get your whole post shadow banned.
NOTE: Be careful!
Double (and triple) check your hashtags. A missed letter or misspelling could put you in a part of the internet where you don't want to be. Also, look for words that when combined with no spaces might read unprofessionally. You also want to do research on each hashtag you use, not just to see how many posts are attached to it, but also to make sure that those tags aren’t shadow banned (aka hidden from user’s pages).
We hope you learned something new and helpful from Part 2 of our Social Media for Business series.
Tune in next week for the final installment of this conversation:
PART 3: Analytics: How Am I Doing?
Learn about tracking the analytics of how you are doing on social media.
Don't hesitate to contact us at
support@wte.net for more help in getting your social media set up or more targeted tips on maintaining your specific business.