Social media is undoubtedly one of the most fascinating developments of our time. In addition to giving everyone a voice that can be heard, it gives brands the ability to gather widespread interest across the globe while adding a human touch to their messaging.
Given the vast number of users on social media, if used correctly, it can be a gold mine for businesses to reach new and existing customers. Therefore, establishing a presence on the top platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram) needs to be top priority in marketing efforts.
The goal of using social media for business purposes is essentially to give your brand a voice with which followers can relate on a personal level. While this might sound like a relatively simple task at first, it can actually be quite difficult to execute.
Social Media Tactics
With this in mind, there are three vital social media tactics that cannot be overlooked. Let’s talk about them.
1. Identifying Trends
A great social media campaign does not start with a posting spree. It starts with listening. If you want to create and distribute content that effectively drives traffic to your website, you need to be in-tune with the topics your target audience is currently talking about.
A big mistake that a lot of brands make is answering these questions and crafting their messaging to fit their own needs, as opposed to the consumers’. This is where tools like Buzzsumo, Sprout Social or Feedly come in handy. They enable you to learn about the content that is buzzing within your industry, around your brand or about your competitors.
Let’s say your company specializes in men’s fashion. You’ll want to start the observation process through a large scope with a short time window. The first metrics to look at are in relation to the big picture of the industry.
Once you’re on Buzzsumo’s homepage, select the “Trending Now” tab. In this case, you would select “Fashion” and a certain timeframe.
This is basically to get a broad overview of the mainstream conversations and topics trending within the industry as a whole.
With the information provided on social media platforms and frequency of shared content, choose which outlet to post on and the most opportune time to do so. For our example, it would be best to distribute your material via Facebook on Monday or Friday to garner the most attention.
Buzzsumo is all about getting the proper insight on how to plan your next content move. On the “Monitoring” tab you can set up alerts to make sure you are constantly up-to-date on what is trending within your industry.
2. Posting Consistently
Perhaps the most important ingredient in establishing a strong brand persona on social media is consistency. Consistent posting leads to stronger brand recall, increased engagement and more opportunities to differentiate yourself from competitors.
Given the rapidly-increasing usage numbers, the harsh reality is that managing your accounts is a 24/7 job. The act of manually posting at the most optimal times at the perfect frequency can become a tough chore in itself. So why not leave this task to the robots so you can focus your energy on creating compelling content for your audience? The last thing you want to do is compromise quality for the sake of sticking to a schedule.
For this job, consider tools like Hootsuite, Edgar or Social Jukebox. As a good deal of social media marketers know, creativity can be something that comes in spurts. With platforms like these, you can create your content whenever the mood strike you and assign them to be posted later on the channel of your choice.
Once you have built up a good base of content, you can create an automated posting schedule most likely to garner high-engagement rates.
Now, your only concern is letting your creativity flow while the system makes sure your material is published as frequently as you want. Once all the content has been posted, you can reschedule or in some cases have these platforms do it for you so there is never a break in consistency.
Additionally, you can use analytics to look at brand mentions and engagement to learn what is working for you, and what needs to be improved upon.
Social management tools take away all the stress of schedules and timelines so you can make content creation your number one priority to establishing a strong presence.
3. Analyzing Results
So you’ve researched and crafted top-notch content, found effective ways to distribute it, but what now? How do you keep the conversations on your social pages going?
Social media marketing should be looked at as a constant work-in-progress. Therefore, tracking engagement needs to be a top priority. Enter tools like Brand24 and Talkwalker. When you rev up your campaign and start releasing content on social media, you will be given access to analytics on each piece.
Talkwalker, for example, provides extremely in-depth insights on every social media posting so you are equipped with everything you need to build a campaign that brings your brand in front of as many eyes as possible. From A to Z, this interface will track every action so your social media efforts are constantly moving in the right direction.
You can get details on certain factors like what demographics your posts appeal to most or what countries are most engaged with your brand messaging.
Viewing all the data on your social media campaign is one thing. Planning the next move accordingly will always be a challenging part of your job. However, the good news is that no matter what you do, there will always be another day and more information to learn from. Platforms like these make it much easier to identify the places you need to grow and shape your strategy.
Parting Words
There is only one guarantee when it comes to social media marketing: it is here to stay. However, as consumer mindsets and business needs change, the social media landscape evolves by the hour. The key to navigating these unknown waters is listening to what the masses are saying and maintaining a strong presence around it. Regardless of what your goals are, keep these three things in mind to avoid getting lost in the extremely fast-moving stream of information.
Social Media Photo via Shutterstock
This article, “3 Social Media Tactics You Should Never Overlook” was first published on Small Business Trends