Social media marketing (SMM) plays a significant role in every business, no matter which industry it operates in. Besides increasing the awareness SMM helps to improve and maintain the trust and loyalty of your existing customers.
Our guide for Social Media Optimization you should start doing now
Businesses, whether they are B2B or B2C, put a lot of energy in creating high quality social media posts: helpful and engaging content people are looking for. But the problem is most users won’t be able to see the content if you only rely on Google’s algorithm.
We will go through a list of the 11 best social media optimization tips and tactics you can use to optimize any social media post and any channel right now!
1. Use hashtags
A hashtag is a keyword or a phrase of keywords with no space in between the words, with the hash symbol before.
They are searchable on social media, your post will be more easily findable if you add several hashtags in the caption. But be careful and choose your hashtags wisely: they have to be relevant for the pictures and the content you share!
Very common thing in marketing: copy-pasting…. Do not copy-paste hashtags from other influencers as it might work for them, but maybe not for you. Use relevant hashtags that are meaningful when they compliment your content. When doing this, you will not be spamming users and rather attracting the users that are actually looking for content like yours.
Here are the types of hashtags you can incorporate into your captions: trending, location, descriptive, interest-based and intent-based. On Instagram you have the possibility to use 30 hashtags, we recommend you use all these categories.
Remember to use hashtags: your main focus and goal is exposure!
2. Make more videos
Visual contents have the most chances to be shared than any other content. In fact, they are approximately 40 times more likely to be more shared, because videos are great for engagement!
Creating videos is an easy way to condense information while grabbing the viewers attention. Storytelling for instance is a great social media tip to create a deeper relationship with your target audience. Video contents are more captivating than long texts, more natural and tend to ignite more emotions.
Deliver a unique and clear message to the viewer in the first few seconds, this will keep him hooked.
3. Always use subtitles
This tip complements the previous one, as most videos are watched without the sound.
On Facebook, 85% of the videos are watched with the sound off. Which means that most people don’t hear what is being said on a video. Consequently, if your video is not being listened to with the sound on, and that the images aren’t explaining well enough what the message is, it is very likely that the audience will not watch.
You also have to deliver your message in the first instants with your subtitles, don’t let your viewers go away!
4. Create thumbnails and cover images
A thumbnail is the picture you see before you actually click on a video. They are very commonly used on Youtube, but you can also find them on Instagram.
Use a picture and add text to it. The text must be short and describe your content, when doing this you help the user find the content he has an interest for. To avoid bounces you thumbnail cover and the text has to be relevant to the video.
Thumbnails are contributing to an user-friendly experience, as long as they are clear and big enough to be seen on a phone screen.
One last trick to go: use a consistent style for your thumbnails, as it will make it easier to recognize your brand and drive back people that know you towards your content.
5. Create trailers and banners
Trailers are on the Youtube channel’s home page, it is the first video you see that plays automatically: this is called the channel trailer. Facebook and Linkedin have basically the same option with the banner image.
It is very important to have one because it is the first thing a visitor sees when coming to your page. Your trailer or banner must be your commercial as a brand, it is your first chance to make an impression. You will find later in this article a great free tool to create your social media banners and designs.
6. Write alternative text, also known as alt-text
Alternative text is part of HTML coding, it basically is a description of the videos and pictures you post.
Alt-text was mainly used for people with visual impairments to consume content. But you can greatly benefit from using alt-text for SEO and following the best image SEO practices.
Write in the dedicated section the topic you are posting about. Use the most appropriate keywords, and by doing this you are helping Google place you more appropriately in its search engine.
7. Go live on social media
Facebook live videos are three times more engaging than the usual videos posted on social media.
Going live on social media is a great strategy to engage with your community, as it gives a kind of exclusive look to your viewers. Do not use live sessions to promote your brand, take this time to make connections with your viewers.
Overall, this type of strategy builds trust and engagement as it can create a real-time conversation with the viewers.
8. Use the right timing for your posts
Having a posting schedule for your social media is a great asset for your business.
Every social media has its high and low traffic times, without even having a fanbase you can already start posting when the most people are online.
But let’s be more relevant with our timing. Once you have clearly defined your target and that you know its habits and content style, you can interact with your target at the right time and right place.
Have a look at your insights, which you will get by A/B testing and using social media analytic tools. You will then see when your followers are active on your social media.
It might be difficult to always post at the right time, so we made sure to list a tool you can use to do it for you.
Always make sure to leverage the opportunity to have the maximum reach for your post.
9. Post stories
62% of people have become more interested in a company after seeing it in Instagram stories.
Quick question: How many likes on average do you have on each Instagram post ? And how many views do you have on each story? Your stories‘ views are surely outnumbering your likes.
This is an opportunity you must reach for, because the main advantage of stories is that it is easy and quick to make.
Stories are more personal and less curated, and they actually tell more of a “story” than your written or pictured content. So if you have gaps in between some publications, you can fill them in with stories. In that way, you stay relevant and consistent.
Interactive stories – polls, open questions, chats, dm – are really interesting as they let you do a wide range of actions to engage with your audience, and optimize the story itself.
10. Reply to each comment, be social!
When somebody takes the time to comment on one of your posts, always take the time to reply.
Let’s quickly list 4 reasons you should always reply to a comment: it encourages people to comment, adds social proof and builds authority and credibility.
In the eyes of social media algorithms, a reply to a comment is considered as a conversation. You will have more exposure if the post makes people comment. Go ahead and be social!
11. Careful to the image quality
Facebook, Instagram and Youtube all have online content moderation run by AI.
Basically AI can determine whether an image or video is of good quality or considered low-grade quality content. So take time to choose wisely your pictures and videos and use the most appropriate format.
Quick tips on how to choose the perfect image:
- Make sure you have the rights to use it (for instance: unsplash or pexels are royalty free stocks of images)
- Use a relevant image that is related to your content (you can also add text over it to mark your point)
- Choose a high quality image
These social media tricks are a great way to skyrocket your traffic, but it only works if you are consistent. They are applicable now, on every single social media of yours: Instagram, Facebook, Linkedin and Youtube. Because as a brand, you spend a lot of time to make the best content possible. So make sure to always provide those 10% more efforts to optimize your social media content.
The 4 most effective social media marketing tips
Before we introduce you those social media marketing tips, we want you to keep in mind that there is no right approach. What works for a business might not work as well for yours. Be creative and authentic, and you will have more chances to succeed!
We will keep it short and simple for these social media marketing tips as they are applicable (now) to all types of businesses. To go more in-depth, we will discuss later in this article how to actually optimize your social media, whether you are creating it or if it is already existing!
Here are our best social media marketing tips:
1. Set your goals with OKR and KPIs
Do not rush into your campaign and take the time to think about your goals. By doing this you will be more efficient as you will have a clear overview of your strategy. The objective and key results framework (Shortern version: OKR) enables businesses to set and track goals and outcomes. It can be implemented using software or more commonly on spreadsheets. It is collaborative which means that the whole team should be working together.
Have you ever heard of the term SMART? It means that your goals have to be: specific, measurable, achievable, realistic and time-limited. By following these criteria you will be able to focus and get higher chances to achieve your goal.
2. Focus on engagement and reach
Followers are what we commonly call vanity metrics, do not track those first. Instead, focus on relevant KPIs such as engagement and reach. It is important to provide value and be genuine to be successful in your social media marketing.
Incentivize your viewers to give their opinion. For this you could create customer-focused content, ask questions, organize contests or create polls.
3. A/B Testing
Whether it is with a caption, hashtag or image, you must test your options and see which ones are the best fits for your target audience. Keep in mind that social media changes constantly.
Apply the Pareto principle: 20% of the input creates 80% of the result. The numbers do not have to be exactly the same as those, it is an analogy of most things in business which are usually not delivered evenly. What we mean is things such as efforts, rewards and outputs.
It can mean that if 20% of your content gets all the likes/comments/shares, you want to focus on that top 20% that’s giving you those 80% returns.
You must always be aware of your market’s wants and needs to stay up to date and give them what they want.
4. Use social media analytics
It is interesting to look at how your audience engages with your company and what content drives more engagement. Tracking your data is crucial as it will help you optimize for better results.
Later in this article we will help you choose the right social media analytics tool for your campaigns. But let us first let’s have a look at the social media metrics you should track to have a complete overview and maximize your exposure.
Important Social media metrics to track according to your funnel stage
The marketing funnel tracks your customers’ journey. Basically, using a marketing funnel helps you know how a visitor becomes a customer. Highly helpful for a business: it is measurable and replicable! There are four ways to measure the customer journey: surveys, digital shop alongs, usage data and interviews.
This approach has an end goal of turning a visitor into a life-long loyal customer and advocates. The most known model of marketing funnel is the AIDA, it maps the customer journey through: Awareness, Interest, Desire and Conversion. Here is what it stands for:
Awareness: is about attracting your target audience, blog articles and inbound marketing are great to aim at your target audience. The social media metric you should track is your number of visitors.
Interest: Creating new leads by encouraging the visitor to look further, how-to’s or e-books are working very well. An interesting social metric you could track is content downloads.
Desire: to make a visitor change from “I like this” to “I want this”, you ought to create a connection with the consumer. A good social media metric you can track is sign-ups, for instance to your newsletter or program.
Action: The final step is to change visitors into customers, the social media metric you should track for this is your number of subscribers.
5 Social Media Marketing Tools to become more efficient
Nowadays in order to simply stay on the radar, you need to be active on social media channels. Ideally, you should be active on all the social media channels your audience can be found. However, sometimes it can be really hard to “be everywhere”. That is why today’s article we decided to dedicate to defining social media marketing tools that can help you to optimize your social media marketing strategy.
We prepared a short overview of the most useful social media marketing tools that can help you to be more efficient. All of them are easily affordable and reliable for usage.
1. Buffer
Buffer is a well-known SMM tool that helps you to stay coherent and active on all the social media channels you are working with. You can schedule and share your posts, articles, images, videos easily with few clicks on the channels you want. This tool is great for providing the Integrated Marketing Strategy for your business.
A simple and user-friendly interface makes it very easy to use.
Moreover, with the Buffer app, you can also get valuable insights regarding the traffic you get with sharing social media content.
2. Rebrandly
Rebrandly is an essential tool for brand and digital marketers.
This link management platform proved itself as a leader at branding, tracking and sharing short URLs using a custom domain name. Rebrandly provides a wide range of solutions from customized analytics to traffic routing and deep linking.
Such big brands as Harvard, Lamborghini, and Heineken use this tool to empower their social media strategy.
3. Feedly
Feedly is a news aggregator application.
The app allows you to create a personalized news feed with relevant content to your company. It is a very useful freemium social media tool because it groups all the information on one feed. It is interesting to use it when you want to know what your audience is reading, the new trend in the industry, etc.
4. Postplanner
Another great social media marketing tool is PostPlanner. This platform helps you to increase traffic and the audience’s engagement level by suggesting the right content for publishing.
This tool can help you to be on top of the wave with its unique “viral content” feature that recognizes and shows the content (it can be images, videos, news and etc.) that is the most viral and best-selling at the moment in your industry.
With this tool, you will never run out of ideas for your content!
5. Social Flow
Social Flow is another well-known social media marketing tool that provides a great value for its users.
One of the unique features of this tool is its ability to predict and show you the ideal time for publishing your content! Its software uses real-time data for creating a prediction specifically for your content.
Social Flow helps you to reach the largest possible audience by publishing the content at the time the audience is most active.
5 Free Social Media Marketing Tools
1. Share Link Generator
Great and easy to use social media marketing tool for sharing the content! With this tool, you can easily share links on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, and Email. As soon as the post is created this tool is generating the link to it, which makes it perfect for sharing.
Share Link Generator has a very simple interface and it is absolutely free! This platform is perfect for promotions and building awareness.
2. Canva
Canva is a free design website that can be used for every platform and format.
Images are used on every platform, whether it is on a blog, a website, social media. And as we discussed previously: the different social media platforms’ algorithm can determine the quality of your images. So they have to be appealing to the eye, maybe have a caption, a filter and a cool layout. As mentioned above, your social media images should be branded, to be recognizable and distinguishable.
If you are starting your business, you might not want to use a part of your budget to design, that’s why Canva is a great option since it has a free library of images and templates.
3. Facebook Barometer
Facebook Barometer is a page analytics tool by agorapulse, which is a social media management software that helps you generate engagement and relationships.
With this tool you can compare your facebook page to your competitors’, with metrics such as: reach (organic, viral and paid), engagement rate, people talking about you, negative feedback and CTR. It is great to complete your strategy and have some perspective on your market.
4. CoSchedule
CoSchedule proposes a headline analyzer tool which gives you a quality score.
The tool rates your headline using these metrics: word balance, characters, words, first and last and keywords. You do not have to be a professional in writing to have qualitative headlines and taking your game up.
5. Secure My Social
Secure My Social is a social security tool to provide warnings if problematic content is posted, in real-time, so it can be removed. The type of content that can be reported by the tool are: leaks, reputational, legal, regulatory, etc. It is always good to know that a tool looks over your shoulder in case you make a mistake.
Today we reviewed 10 useful tools that can help you optimize your social media marketing strategy.
We are happy to help you grow your business!
Find out more about “One Metric That Matter” concept in Marketing and the benefits of marketing KPIs tracking with the Anomaly Detection algorithm!
Read more and download our free ebook to learn the fundamentals of data-drivenness with 17 marketing KPIs!
