Social media has been all the rage for quite some time. Given the success of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat and Instagram, it’s no surprise that businesses have found clever ways to reach their prospects and customers through them.
One of the most important things for a business or influencer to understand is their target audience’s attention. Millions of people spend hours upon hours every day on social media, so businesses need to have a strong presence there to be truly elite.
But despite the fact that most businesses know they should have social media presence, it’s not always executed correctly. It can be disappointing to launch new social media campaigns only to see underwhelming returns on your investment.
Social media is a unique medium through which to communicate. But if you take these considerations into account when formulating and executing your social media strategy, you can improve your results and start getting the most out of social media today:
Targeting
When you’re crafting social media posts, it’s important to keep your target audience in mind. You’ll always have more power the more you know about your audience.
What are their political stances? What do they believe in? What do they value? What “camp” do they tend to fit into?
Your audience should feel respected and understood by your brand. From there, building a genuine (and lucrative) connection will be much easier.
Platform relevancy
People that spend lots of time on a particular platform understand how that platform works. They understand the sub-cultures, the rules and what makes a good post. They’ve seen it all before.
If you jump into posting on a platform you’re unfamiliar with, you’ll stick out like a sore thumb. A bad social media post is one that overtly reveals itself as a pitch or an ad right off the bat. Even worse is when a business blanket-posts the same post across multiple platforms. People see right through it.
Timing
You should always be keeping track of when people engage with your social media activity. What times work throughout the week? When do people share the most, comment the most or like the most?
This is all easy to track. In fact, many social media posting services offer time optimisation algorithms that determine the ideal time to post for you. Check out a few examples here, Hootsuite & IconoSquare.
In addition to weekly timing, you need to be aware of and play to popular holidays too. Make Halloween posts, Christmas posts and more.
Personality
Social media should be used to actually connect with your consumers. You want them to view your brand as cool, useful, trustworthy, understanding and most importantly, human.
People buy from people, not organisations. People want to be helped by people, not soulless corporations. Show the human side of your business, and you’ll see great results from your social media marketing.
