Social Media – Best Practice
There are some best practices when it comes to social media marketing. Once you have gained some momentum you will see what works well and what doesn’t, depending on your audience.
• Types of content to share
What would your prospective customers love to see? It’s important for you to think about what your prospective customers would read and engage with. Is it your newest product or service? Is it a video about an aspect of what you offer? Putting yourself in their position will work every time.
What would they love to learn? Your prospective audience will love to learn. Perhaps it might be some hints and tips on how to get started in business, changes in legislation or how to style one of the products that you make. It could be, a tip or trick of the trade. This will make you stand out as the expert in your field, which builds trust.
What would get them talking/commenting? Your main aim is interaction. Every time someone comments on your posts, their friends, connections will see this – spreading the word organically is key.
What would make them share your posts? Think of posts that your prospective customers and current customers would want to share with their friends. It could be an offer or a competition…a giveaway if they answer a poll. The aim is to reach as many people as you possibly can and the more your audience engage your reach will extend,
You can share text-based posts, images, articles, events, video and live video. The more visual content you can share the better as it stands out from other posts in your prospective customers’ feeds – people also engage more with visual content.
They say that that 65% of people are visual learners and that 90% of information that comes to the brain is visual, and posts with visual images are 43% more persuasive – which means they are more likely to buy from you.
• Frequency of updates
This is a very common question, and there is no right or wrong answer. It simply depends on the channel you are using, your audience, their interest level and what you have to say. There has been some research on this topic that can act as a general guideline; but as with most things, it’s best to test and see what works best for you and your audience on each platform.
The life of a post is very short, it means that it will only remain visible for a short period of time – a matter of minutes. Users move on to more recent posts quite quickly if nothing catches their eye. This doesn’t mean that you need to keep posting throughout the day. The key here is to see how long your users are engaging and sharing something. This is a key to indicate the quality and interest of your content.
Posting once per day across the channels is ample unless your posts are in different formats. You may schedule a text-based post first thing in the morning but then want to do a Facebook Live in the afternoon. The chance of your audience seeing the text-based post could be quite slim depending on the content so, as long as the post is a different format it won’t be post overload.
When do I post?
Posting on the social channels will depend on your audience, for example if you are targeting mums with school-aged children:
• During the week, a mum, who has children to get ready for school will probably check her social channels briefly when she first wakes between 6-7.00am, but will not take action.
• She may not check her channels between 8-9.30am as she could be doing the school run.
• She may not check her channels between 3-7.00pm as she could be working, doing the school runs, after school clubs and then coming home and cooking dinner.
• She then may check the channels between 8 and 10pm. She is probably more likely to shop online at this time too.
It’s important to get very granular. Really drill down on the times you feel that your audience will be online as it makes a huge difference to post success.
To summarise:
Testing is key. Create different messages for different audiences, at different times and continue to test to see what works.
