It can be extremely tempting to create a social media account for your organisation on each of the major platforms. However, doing this means you could be wasting valuable time and resources which would be better spent on the channels that your target audiences are active on. Take time to research this, and decide if creating or maintaining a presence will be beneficial to your overall business objectives.
Whilst you can often post the same pieces of content on each channel, you will need to remember that each platform is unique. This means ensuring that each post is optimised to the nature of that platform. For example, long form content would be a good fit for LinkedIn, whereas a short summary and relevant hashtag would work best on Twitter.
Although some of your main social media objectives are likely to be around boosting brand awareness and leads, your posts should be a mixture of relevant content and not just be about your products or services. By sharing industry news, replying to comments and engaging with those in your online community you will find it easier to acquire followers and position your organisation as a thought leader.
It’s important to keep your key messaging consistent on each of your social media channels. Whether that’s branding related, such as logo, cover image and social media handle, or general tone of voice, your organisation needs to be recognised instantly if you want people to follow you from one channel to the next.
Hashtags are a fantastic way to categorise your posts and allow people with similar interests to find your content. As a general rule of thumb, I recommend using no more than a maximum of three hashtags per post and writing them in CamelCase to improve their readability – this is where the first letter of each word in the hashtag is capitalised.
Visual content, such as photos and videos, are now a key element of social media posts. They are a creative and highly effective method of communicating your brand’s story beyond plain text – think about producing infographics which demonstrate the impact of your organisation or short videos. Research shows that this content can have a positive impact on both reach and engagement.
Each of the main platforms have analytics tools available for you to use. Work out which metrics are most relevant to your aims and regularly review these. This will provide you with valuable insight into everything from the best times to post, through to which content resonates most with your audience.
Alongside reviewing your own social media data, you should monitor and benchmark your organisation against your competitors. This will enable you to see what is working for them, spot trends and provide you with ideas of how to improve and differentiate your own social media offering.
Organisations are becoming increasingly more receptive to the benefits of employee advocacy on social media. Asking employees to post and share content about your organisation will increase your reach beyond your own channels and also allow potential leads to see the faces behind the brand.
Social media platforms are regularly improving their user experience which means new features and updates that you need to be aware of. From Facebook penalising newsfeed clickbait to Twitter removing handles from its 140 character limit - there’s a lot to stay clued up on if you want to maximise your success!
Author: Dan Stobbs