Ten Social Media Tips From The Experts

Here are some social media tips from the professionals to prepare you for the bumpy journey that lies ahead as you build up your brand through social media marketing…

1. Ashleigh Chisholm – Social Media Manager, Surge Marketing Solutions

“Hi, can you like my social media pages?”

Getting your friends and family to like your social media pages can be detrimental to your engagement level if they are unlikely to want your products and services. Having thousands of likes might look good to the untrained eye, but if these likes are favours from friends and family, it will shine through when no one is interacting with your content. This is particularly important now that Facebook has changed their algorithm. If you don’t interact with a page, you won’t see it on your timeline. Therefore, if many of your ‘likers’ aren’t genuinely interested, your page risks fading into the background.

2. Belle Beth Cooper – iOS Developer, Writer and Co-founder of Hello Code

Stop making the most common Twitter mistake

The mistake is an easy one to miss, but it all comes down to the very start of the Tweet. Starting a Tweet with a username means that only the sender, the person mentioned and anyone who follows them both will see it. So, how do we solve this? If you really want to start your Tweet with a username, add a period to the beginning.

3. Drew Hendricks – Contributor, Forbes

Choose the right platform

There are hundreds of social media platforms, which means there are many options beyond Facebook, Google+, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube. Take some time to see which platforms are best for your business and limit them to five max. No full-time employee has time to manage anything more, and you may find you’re a better fit for an underdog platform than Pinterest.

4. Firas Kittaneh – Contributor at Entrepreneur.com and CEO of One Mall Group

Facilitate meaningful connections

Your clients, customers and users are incredible people, and when you identify like-minded folk, encourage them to interact with one another, over and over again. You will birth relationships that will always reference you as a common interest, reinforcing their love for your company’s brand.

5. Scott Ayres – Co-author of Facebook All-In-One for Dummies

Spruce up your LinkedIn page

Company pages offer a platform to share diverse types of content, yet many brands are notably absent on LinkedIn. Rope your page in, update the cover photo, add information, and start sharing. Encourage your staff members to stay plugged in – people who work at your company can connect their personal profiles to your brand, creating a new source of content that your audience can follow.

6. Dan Shewan – Writer, Wordstream

Start remarketing on Social

Our top social media marketing tip is to use remarketing in your paid social campaigns. Think of the last time you were browsing your News Feed on Facebook. You saw an ad, clicked through immediately, and bought or signed up for whatever the site was offering. Remember? No, neither do I, because unlike the perfect world in which marketers wished we live, people very rarely behave this way online. By failing to remarket to potential customers on social media, you’re literally putting all your time, money, and effort into a single opportunity to convert your prospects, which is every bit as crazy as it sounds when you put it like that.

Remarketing is one of the most powerfully effective techniques at your disposal – and it becomes even more so on Facebook. By remarketing to prospective customers on social, you’re vastly increasing the chances that a customer will go the distance and convert. Even if they don’t, the additional brand exposure is still worth the investment alone, so it’s crucial that you start remarketing on Facebook. To get started, check out Margot’s thoroughly comprehensive guide to Facebook remarketing.

7. Antonio Tooley – Marketing Specialist, Resumes Planet

Analyse the success of your content

While it’s important to produce content on a regular basis, it’s even more important to know what content has performed best among your readership. Apart from identifying the most successful posts, you should also take the time and discover the reasons behind that success. Fortunately, thanks to analytics software and a variety of different apps, it’s easier than ever to keep track of what works and what doesn’t work.

8. Kristina Cisnero – Online Strategist, Hootsuite

Your social media strategy must include social media engagement

Skimping out on social media engagement in your social media strategy can pose a huge threat to your company’s social media presence. The 3 steps to doing social media engagement right are being proactive, always listening, and being engaging. Learn more in this blog post.

9. Dominique Jackson – Blogger and Marketing Specialist, Sprout Social

Post Consistently

Sending out one Tweet per day just isn’t going to cut it. Certain platforms like Instagram and Snapchat don’t necessarily move as fast as Twitter or Facebook. This means you don’t have to publish as often. But you should still develop a routine posting schedule and be consistent. This ties back in with your social media marketing plan. You should outline:

• How often you plan to publish on each social media channel
• What type of content you plan to publish
• Social media outreach publishing schedule (reaching out to influencers via social media)

Remember your followers are likely following hundreds or even thousands of other people. If you’re not publishing new content as often as the other accounts out there, it’s easy to get lost and forgotten.

10. Vangie Beal – Writer, Small Business Computing

Find relevant, influential people

In social circles, the big influencers have a vast reach. With large groups of followers, influencers can potentially spread your message to a much larger audience. The secret is to find the influencers within your industry and give them something to talk about (or to retweet). Twellow is a handy search engine tool that will help you find people, listed by their area of expertise. Use this social tool to find the influential Twitter pros most relevant to your business, products, and services.