Most would agree that social media is a powerful tool integrated in the workflows of the world’s largest brands. Whether a company’s goal is to increase brand awareness, maximize their marketing efforts through content creation, or generate sales via social commerce marketplaces, countless organizations find that focusing resources into social media strategy yields a hefty return on investment. For that reason, it’s incredibly disappointing when your social media strategy brings in underwhelming results. Still, that’s no reason to abandon social media altogether. If you’re using these outdated techniques, you may want to enlist the help of a social media community manager to update your approach with current best practices.
Create Content, Not a Catalogue
The average social media user doesn’t have to consider much beyond community guidelines when deciding what and when to post on their accounts. Brands aiming to use these platforms as a tool to increase online presence, however, need to be thoughtful and calculated about both their content and their approach.
One of the biggest mistakes to make online is posting boring content. If your audience isn’t interested in the things that you post, it immediately renders your social media strategy ineffective. Two thirds of Instagram users say the platform helps them connect with brands, which means there is huge potential to increase the impact of your social media efforts if you post content that users want to interact with.
No matter how many followers you have, you should be thinking about the value that your content provides for your audience and designating a social media community manager to facilitate a conversation. Rather than just uploading images of a product, post a video that demonstrates an innovative way to use it, and encourage followers to share out of the ordinary scenarios where your product is useful. Shine a spotlight on employees, and let them share with customers how your brand incorporates its mission statement in different areas of the company. Follower count doesn’t have a direct correlation with click-through rates, so you’re better off focusing on creating high-quality content than expanding your following. These and other examples of user-generated content are ways to deepen the connection between your brand and your customers, and will optimize your social and content marketing strategy.
Post Media Methodically
Another reason that your social media strategy may not be very effective is if you are engaging with social media as an afterthought. If you upload the same digitized above-the-line marketing material across all of your accounts and occasionally add behind-the-scenes content to your stories, that’s not a comprehensive strategy. All businesses should curate social media feeds that communicate who they are as a brand rather than what inventory they have in stock, and those who have the capacity should consider consulting a social media management agency to help execute that plan.
Spontaneous content can be very valuable, but you also want to have evergreen content prepared so that you can post on a regular basis. Consistent brand messaging builds trust with your audience, but a consistent posting schedule increases your standing among search engine results algorithms.
Spotting the trends
As you develop a calendar of content and prepare to launch your enhanced social media strategy, you also need to think about how you’re going to measure success. There is a wealth of third-party software that monitor your accounts and supply specialized analytics and reporting, but most social media platforms offer business accounts a basic dashboard of engagement metrics. Some posts will perform better than others—that’s par for the course if you use social media. Nonetheless, collecting data can help you spot trends in your account’s engagement that you can use to improve your content.
Perhaps your audience is more likely to share infographics than videos, or people comment more on images posted first thing in the morning. Research conducted by Hootsuite cites that the best time to post on Instagram is Wednesday morning at 11, but tracking your engagement with your own audience will give you a much more reliable analysis than data aggregated from the app’s billion active users.
An effective social media strategy requires both an awareness of current trends across all platforms as well as an ability to apply insight gained from monitoring specific KPIs. If your brand wants strengthen your online presence and looking for support creating compelling, high-quality content, a social media community manager can be a great addition to your team.