How to use Social Media more effectively for your Business
Social Media nowadays has become a non-negotiable for Modern Businesses. The natural reach that posting online has undeniable value, especially for smaller businesses with smaller marketing budgets. But are you using it as well as you can for your business?
Over the past 10 years, social media has transformed from being about connecting with friends and family over the internet to becoming a place that businesses can build a huge following through. With that massive change comes a change in the way you might expect to use social media to grow your business. Luckily for you, that’s what we’re discussing here! But I think you already knew that 🤔
So where do we start? Well…
1. Check your analytics
An obvious point to some but nevertheless, a good one to start with, especially if you’re relatively new to this! Analytics are actually much simpler to understand than you think. Once you look past all the numbers, the really important metrics to track are your Reach, Engagement rate and Follower count. While none of these necessarily contribute directly to sales, they’re great Top of Funnel marketing metrics!
Reach is how many individual accounts saw your content. Depending on the site you’re tracking this metric for, people will have more than one way to see your content (Ads, discovery tab, hashtag search etc.) but the main point is that this tracks how many people actually saw your content. Reach is often confused with impressions, especially on Instagram! Impressions also counts how many times your content was viewed but it also includes accounts that saw content on their feed twice as opposed to Reach which only counts individual accounts.
Engagement rate is relatively self-explanatory, it’s how many different engagements your content got. These can be likes, comments, shares, saves etc. This one is particularly good to track as you can figure out what your audience likes to see and what they relate to most. Content that your audience likes to interact with is essential for your Top of Funnel Marketing!
Your Follower count is pretty obvious, it’s how many people follow you. And, as we all know, the more eyes on your business, the more people know about your business, the more likely you are to make sales!
2. Post Consistently
Don’t worry, I’m not asking you to post every day. While that might be preferable, posting consistently every Monday, Wednesday, Friday makes much more of a difference than posting for a week straight then posting whenever you feel like it. Posting reactively might give your posts a more casual, natural feel to them but I would argue that’s better for Story features such as those you find on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and, for a time, Twitter.
Posting consistently means people will always see a stream of content coming from your accounts and always have you in their mind and on their feed. This increases the number of eyes on your content and increases the chances that people who aren’t already following you will start following you. It also steadily builds up content on your page and make it seem far more active. Personally, I’d recommend posting 3 times a week and posting no less than twice if possible!
3. Be aware of the different quirks each site has
Remember how I said things have changed massively in the last 10 years? Well, every platform works in a similar way on the surface, but each has different quirks that can range from being small details to being what defines the Social Media site.
Instagram is an interesting one again for this and is probably the most restricted app out of all of them. I say “app” and not “site” because they really want you to use the app more than the site. The ultimate way they do this is by not allowing you to post through the website. But they also do it through the push for vertical 5×4 aspect ratio posts, designed for a phone screen 🙄 Despite this, Instagram is the second biggest Social Media site with only Facebook having a larger audience than it.
LinkedIn also stands out with some interesting quirks. First the obvious one, its centred around businesses and business connections more than anything else. The second, slight odd one is that it punishes you for using more than 5 hashtags and rewards you for having 3 exactly. It’s a bit confusing if you’re a young person (like me!) and you’re coming from Instagram where hashtags aren’t exactly regulated (apart from the 30 max in any post). Being aware of the different ways each site works and the best ways to leverage them is crucial to effectively using your Social Media accounts!
4. Be aware of Trends
I know what you’re thinking, no we’re not asking you to do the latest TikTok dance on your Social Media accounts! However, being aware of what everyone is talking about on social media is extremely helpful for increasing your reach and the amount of eyes on your content. Tools such as Hashtag checkers can help you figure out what’s popular currently and use that information to your advantage.
World events are also good to use for social media. For example, a company we work with specialise in renewable energy solutions, so we regularly post for them on renewable energy news. This is great for switching up a “sell, sell, sell!” approach (as we like to call it!) and bring in some content that is relatable and far more human.
In Conclusion…
I hope you found these tips useful! Social Media has become a bit of a scary beast in the past few years and the people who know how to use it are also the ones who are getting the most attention online. By keeping some of these tips in mind, you can do the same thing for your business!
If the real issue with your Social Media Effectiveness is that you don’t have enough time to create and post content, you might want to check out our youmarketingdept.online services. Along with Social Media management, we also offer email marketing, automations and retargeting readiness to help you achieve your business growth goals!
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Autus provide Revenue Growth Platforms, Marketing & Sales Automation and Digital Marketing services to help sales and marketing personnel and teams build efficient and effective sales and marketing best practices and automate their marketing and sales processes by leveraging personalised content, various digital marketing tactics, segmentation and behaviour of their prospects and customers.
Autus recommend various products for automation, such as Active Campaign, Hubspot, Mailchimp and SharpSpring…it will vary on your requirements and budget the best option for your business.
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Our founder, Tom Berry, also provides selective fractional CMO services and is a member of some client boards.
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If our team at Autus can help advise further, please don’t hesitate to get in touch with our founder, Tom Berry.
