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Social media is definitely one of the most valuable tools business have today to reach out to their potential customers. That said, using social media to promote your business can be an exhausting process that seems to suck up a lot of time and effort you could be using to actually run your business. So how do you find that perfect balance? Here are some tricks to maximize your efforts without spending all day just stressing about posts and engagement.
Use Images
This is a simple change that can make a huge difference on your social media marketing's impact. People's eyes are naturally drawn to images and using them to illicit emotions in your audience can make them far more likely to pay attention to what you have to say. According to marketing strategist Jeff Bullas, Facebook posts with images have 37% more engagement than text posts.
Even if your business sells a service instead of a physical product, you can still engage with audiences through funny images, pictures of your community, or even a picture of your pet (as long as you can relate it to your business in some small way!) Get creative and start brainstorming ways you can get people talking.
Make Your Headlines Count
When a consumer is scrolling their newsfeed on social media, the largest, most eye-catching details are what is going to make them stop scrolling and look. Your headlines are the first thing they will see, and the largest text on your post. So make it matter to them. Selling something? Put that must-have benefit in your headline. Want someone to read your blog post? Pique their curiosity with a small teaser or question you know they would want answered.
8 out of 10 people read just the headlines of articles to determine if they should keep scrolling. And for those that do continue read, it is crucial that you deliver on whatever your headline promises. If it doesn't they will likely assume your business is untrustworthy and avoid your content in the future.
Create a Posting Schedule
Posting content consistently to multiple social media platforms by hand is a daunting task. And if you forget to post, you can miss out on a prime opportunity to engage with your audience. There are days of the week and times of the day that are statistically proven to be optimal for posting to an audience. This data is readily available and you should make use of it!
Make sure your data is up to date (especially since the covid-19 pandemic has drastically changed how and when people use social media), and confirm that the audience you want to target is likely to follow these trends. Once you have an idea of when to post, start thinking of what you want your audience to know.
Schedule posts to go up at consistent times of day and take the time to create posts that you know your audience would be interested in. Don't be afraid to link articles and information from other sources that have great insights about things you want to post. It makes your life easier and makes you look more credible and well-informed. With many platforms, you can plan and schedule posts far out into the future, allowing you to focus your attention elsewhere.
Use Social Media Management Tools
Don't be afraid to make use of tools that make managing your various social media accounts more streamlined. The easier it is to keep track of everything, the less time you'll have to spend simply getting the job done. These tools can help you generate content, schedule your postings, track your social media ROI, run ads and more. Here are some great tools for small businesses and solopreneurs:
1. Hootsuite
Want an all-in-one platform that integrates a large number of social media platforms? Hootsuite is one of the top social media management platforms out there with over 16 million users. It offers and limited free plan that allows you to manage 3 social media channels and schedule up to 30 posts.
Standout Features:
Offers a large variety of channels including Twitter, Facebook groups and pages, LinkedIn pages and profiles, Instagram, YouTube, and Pinterest. (see even more with the Hootsuite App Directory)
One of the only social media management tools that offers a free plan
Team collaboration features (delegate responsibilities, track messages, and mark as done)
RSS integration allowing post updates from and RSS feed
Mobile apps for both iOS and Android
Sprout Social puts a lot of emphasis on building stronger relationships with consumers and their unique customer relationship management (CRM) feature lends itself well to doing just that. It offers a robust and well-designed report system and helps businesses understand their customers to better serve them.
Standout Features:
Beautiful and comprehensive report system that can be downloaded and sent out without any editing
Combines a larger selection of social media management tools into one platform than most other options
Customer Relation Management for a more complete profile of your customer base for building stronger connections with them.
30-Day free trial
3. Agora Pulse
Similar to the two mentioned above, Agora Pulse is an all-in-one platform with scheduling, responding, and reporting features. It's reports are comparable to Sprout Social's with a slightly cheaper lowest option (though also a shorter free trial of just 14 days).
Standout Features
Excellent reporting quality
Common replies feature that allows you to save any replies you find yourself frequently saying to questions or comments
More affordable than comparable software
Competitor analysis and Facebook contest apps at an affordable price
There are many more platforms out there beyond these 3, and I suggest trying as many as it takes to find the best fit for your business.
Make Smart Use of Hashtags
If your business uses Twitter or Instagram, learning how to make the most of hashtags is a crucial part of growing your audience. Even if a Twitter or Instagram user doesn't follow your business, they can still find your posts by searching relevant hashtags. This gives you the chance to reach a larger audience, especially when you create posts that can make use of popular hashtags (but make sure you're not just throwing popular hashtags in without the content to match!).
Make sure you do plenty of research to discover the best hashtags to use with your business, that way you already have some in mind when you go to create your postings. You also want to limit your hashtag use to a few per post. Regular users will assume it's spam if your text is covered in hashtags and many will actively ignore you.
Space Out Your Posts
This goes hand in hand with scheduling your social media posts. Many small businesses fall into the trap of thinking that if they spam a bunch of posts in one day every week, their page will look active and interesting. Only...that's not how social media works.
The average lifespan of a Facebook post is just 6 hours! All those posts that could have been spread out strategically over the course of a week or a month now have to fight for a spot on your audience's timeline over a short 6 hour span. Your posts will reach far less people and receive lower levels of engagement that way. To top it off, Facebook tracks engagement to determine the value of your business to the public. The more engaging a company is, the more visibility their posts receive. Any way you look at it, spamming posts only hurts your page in the long run.
Be Adaptable
This last tip is a difficult one to master, but doing so can skyrocket the effectiveness of your social media marketing. Marketing is all about understanding your target audience and delivering content that matters to them. But not every post, no matter how well-researched or planned, will engage with consumers the way you expect. Making use of every strategy, tool, and statistic will give your business the best possible chance of reaching your target audience. But it is going to miss the mark sometimes.
That is the time to re-assess. Take a look at what didn't work, find out why, and make it better next time. Make use of your own experiences as much as any other tool because every target market is unique. Test new methods, continue to use ideas that work, and listen to your audience.
Social media is here to stay and growing every day. It's important for businesses to keep growing and adapting with it. Consumers have come to expect content packed with value and authentic engagement from business owners. Consistently providing both on a regular basis is the best chance a business has to increase their audience and reputation through social media.
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