While a lot of businesses have gotten into social media, few really understand it—the best times to post, the best ways to write copy or format images, and how to manage posting schedules on multiple platforms efficiently.
The question is no longer whether your brand needs social media—it has become a virtual necessity—the question is how to do it best. So we’re running down a list of social media best practices to set you on the course to the best results.
Optimise, Grow, Engage
These are arguably the basics of social media marketing. You first start with setting goals and objectives for your social media platforms. If you don’t have any accounts yet, you need to ask yourself, “What platforms does my business really need to be active on?”
Once you’ve picked your platforms and established your objectives for each, audit the pages you have and optimised their page contents by filling all the details your customer needs while speaking in their tone.
After optimisation, focus on growing your page by creating quality posts and engaging with your online audience. This will further establish your social media branding and make you more visible. Running ads can boost the growth of your page and post engagements as well.
Be Updated
Changes and updates in social media marketing, whether to strategies or tools, are common. It seems like there’s something new every day—from Facebook “copying” Snapchat’s stories to Instagram live videos—and keeping up with these new features is critical to maintaining a competitive social media plan.
You also need to look for the more technical updates on social media, like the way YouTube just changed the way they monetized creator videos. Another prime example of this is Facebook’s constantly-updated algorithm. At present, they’re prioritizing live videos: why not make your brand go live or create more video content?
While you shouldn’t necessarily participate in all the trends, choose ones you can shine in when you hop on the bandwagon. To be updated with the latest in social media check out sites like, Social Media Examiner and Social Media Today.
Test and Check your Results
Social media gaffes can be costly, but that’s no reason to avoid changing things up.
After your first month of handling social media, export the data and see if the results are on the right track to reach your goals. What strategy worked? What was your most engaging post? If not, what went wrong? Do you need the help of ads to be more visible? Take the things that worked and test new strategies or improve the ones that didn’t work.
Afterwards, carefully monitor the new strategies you’re testing out to see if they’re contributing to achieve your objectives. You can also innovate by trying out new tools that can help you manage accounts and platforms more productively but make sure it’s cost efficient.
Keep testing but take a moment every so often to make sure any changes you’re testing are still aligned with your goals.
When done right social media can help businesses grow their online community, engage with their target market, convert leads into customers, and even run ads to target new potential audiences for an affordable price. When done wrong, social media won’t add anything new to your brand.
Though it may sometimes seem tedious, following these social media best practices will guarantee success in managing your brand online.
If you’re not sure how well you’re handling your social media brand pages, start by checking if your Facebook is optimized. Download our free Facebook Audit checklist for your guide.
Comments