With over 2.8 billion people active on social media, each platform has become oversaturated with information, making it more critical than ever to be able to break through the noise and capture your audience’s attention. Luckily, social media provides an excellent opportunity to get in front of customers and interact with them on a personal level. We created a list of the 5 most important changes you can make in your marketing strategies to start seeing a higher social media ROI today.
- Find your optimal posting time and frequency.
Facebook: Post on Facebook a minimum of three times a week. Experiment with posting from 12PM-3PM Monday through Friday and 12PM-1PM Saturday and Sunday. Facebook is the most popular social media network with 75% of users spending 20+ minutes on the platform every day. This means businesses should make an effort to reach their audience on Facebook a few times a week, but be careful not to spam them. Users often are not hesitant to unfollow accounts that post too frequently. It’s all about finding the happy medium.
Twitter: Post up to 15 times per day. The best time to post on Twitter is 1-3PM Monday through Friday. Twitter has a quasi-chronological timeline, so posts with high engagement will be shown under a “While You Were Away Heading”. However, other posts only have an average half-life of 15 minutes. This means it is important to post quality content frequently to achieve desired impressions.
Instagram: Start with posting once a day around 5PM. Last year Instagram made a significant platform change – instead of seeing posts in chronological order, Instagram now uses an algorithm that shows users’ posts based on assumed interest. As a result, frequent posting no longer means that your brand will reach more people. Instead, it is necessary to get high levels of engagement when initially posted in order to be shown to a large user base.
LinkedIn: The best time to post on LinkedIn is midweek during lunch breaks, from 12-1PM, or after work from 5-6PM. People on LinkedIn are also likely to login in the morning from 7:30 to 8:30AM.
Pinterest: Pin 10 times each day, with at least 2 of the 10 being your original content. Research shows that the best time to post on Pinterest is 8-11PM; however, others find that pinning throughout the day works better. Try to avoid posting on Pinterest during work hours as many users go on Pinterest as an evening break to imagine future projects.
With each platform it is important to analyze what time and frequency works best for your business. Facebook and Instagram allow you to see what time your followers are online—this tool can be extremely helpful for maximizing your social media conversion rate.
- Engage with your audience.
Appeal to your audience by making your posts personal. You can encourage user engagement by framing posts with questions or quotes. Compelling language is always a must – so take the time to carefully craft your captions and descriptions. All businesses have a unique audience so it is important to spend time looking at Google Analytics in order to see what kind of posts lead to the greatest engagement.
Also, be sure to interact with other accounts by liking, commenting, and following different users. Retweeting on Twitter is a great strategy for expanding the reach of your brand, as others are likely to pay it forward and return the favor by retweeting your content as well. Two-way conversations on social media help brands connect to their customers on a more human level.
- Create platform specific content.
Each platform favors different kinds of content. Twitter, for example, is the perfect place to share relevant articles and industry news, while Instagram content is more visually focused. As a result, businesses should avoid copying and pasting the exact same content on each platform. Here are some platform differences to be aware of when planning your social media calendar:
Facebook: Videos are all the rage on Facebook right now. With that, keep in mind that 80% of Facebook videos are watched on silent. Videos that are still engaging on silent will have greater levels of engagement and captions can increase engagement by 12%. Facebook’s complicated algorithm generally tries to reduce the amount of promotional posts that “pop up” on user’s newsfeeds. In order to increase your businesses exposure, avoid clickbait posts or exaggerated headlines and post less promotional content.
Twitter: A key to building a fan base on Twitter is sharing around 70% other people’s work and 30% your own work. Tweets that use less than the 140 characters generally perform better. Pictures on Twitter should have dimensions of 600 x 300 px. Hashtags are beneficial, but only when chosen wisely – use RiteTag to see which hashtags will help your posts get the most reach.
Instagram: Visuals are the key to Instagram content (obviously). The most successful Instagram accounts have aesthetically pleasing posts each day that keep their followers interested. Try alternating your caption lengths, as they do not correlate with engagement, and experimenting with a more casual tone.
LinkedIn: As the most professional platform, LinkedIn content should be business-focused with minimal frills. Company updates, industry insights, and interesting videos lead to the greatest engagement on LinkedIn. According to a LinkedIn study, status updates containing questions receive 50% more comments, and thus engagements. As always, post the content that is relevant to your unique audience.
Pinterest: Successful pins include the following 3 characteristics: multiple images, texts, and an accurate description. Start by creating 4 to 5 boards that relate to your industry, then add a mix of original content and repined content to those boards daily. When sharing articles, try to avoid using an image taken from the article and instead use Adobe Illustrator or Photoshop to add a title to the image.
- Avoid focusing on selling.
People tend to avoid social media that bombards them with product pushes. Try to build relationships in the social media community before pushing sales. You can create a fan base by focusing on engagement and posting content that benefits your audience – such as support, tips, information, checklists, inspiration, and resources.
- Know your audience.
Like we mentioned above, it is easy for content to get lost in today’s oversaturated platforms. Therefore, it is critical to understand the audience your company is targeting. For example, if millennial females are your target customers, then Instagram is extremely important as their users are predominantly females under the age of 35. Consider using Facebook and Instagram insights to see when your fans are online or check out Tracx’ 2017 State of Social to see which platforms are used by different demographics.
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