Top Ways Businesses Can Improve Their Social Media
30/05/2022
Social media is a crucial part of owning a successful business, whether that may be a small business' socials or a large corporate company that applies marketing strategies – it will bring you clients and ensure your business reaches as far as it can.
Our friends at Audience are social media and marketing whizzes so, we reached out to them and they shared the top ways businesses can improve their social media…
1. 80/20 Rule
Have you ever scrolled through a business’ social media and all you can see are posts about products, sales and opening times? That’s entirely what you need to avoid when thinking about your social media.
The 80/20 rule explains that 80% of your content should be personable and entertaining such as product knowledge, brand awareness and team content, while the other 20% of that should be used for sales and promotions. It can get boring having the same message repeating over and over again on your newsfeed, if you wouldn’t like it on your feed, don’t expect anyone else to either.
This rule ensures that you have a variety of content and aren’t just fixated on sales, it makes your audience understand your business and know that it isn’t just robots behind a screen, it’s human beings who interact with one another. Having such a split will make your content more shareable and likely to go viral – that is the dream, isn’t it?
2. How to Use Hashtags
The world of hashtags can be a very complicated one, use too many and you’ll annoy your audience but using too few may put you at risk of low engagement and your post never being seen. It is crucial to include between 10-13 hashtags within your post and apply a mix of ‘niche’ and basic tags. Niche tags can be used to describe details in your post or specific brand information, whereas broad hashtags are those found on many popular posts such as #explorepage.
Keep in mind that some popular hashtags have very short lifespans which means that they will not bring you any new engagement after a short while – some hashtags on Twitter only working for 7 seconds!
Having a mix of hashtags, using around 10-13 and including them consistently in every post will ensure that your posts are found and that they appear on the important part of any platform.
3. Personable Content
Ever heard of the phrase, people buy from people? It’s true – having personable content is at the forefront of social media creation. There are many companies out there that heavily focus on animations and graphics and although there’s nothing wrong with graphic content, you should include images of team members, customers and products which will bring more life to your feed.
Having content of team members speaking or customer reviews, even examples of previous work would be perfect for any feed. Customers want to know that there is a face behind a business and who they would potentially be buying from so creating that brand awareness will ensure that your business is known for its uniqueness and the brilliant people behind it. Tell people about how and why you started, who is involved and how they can get in touch, and you have all the resources needed right in front of you!
4. Consistency is Key
Consistency is key above all content and marketing strategies – there is little-to-no point in being present on a number of social media platforms if you only post once a month because, by the time your next post rolls around, everyone would’ve forgotten you even offered these services.
If you find a handful of platforms too overwhelming, starting from just one or two would be ideal, focussing on creating weekly or daily content to fit in with your brand and schedule content ahead of time so your customers and clients can stay up-to-date with news and changes.
Having consistent content will give customers a reason to follow and building anticipation for the next post through Instagram Stories or ‘sneak peaks’ will create a buzz within your community and make customers aware that you’re socially active on your chosen platforms.
5. Answer Questions
Your audience probably has a million questions starting from what your company does to the services you offer to the history behind each product, and remember, you’re the experts. Putting your knowledge to good use and answering questions through content, comments and Stories is a great way of engaging with your audience. If you answer important questions this might even increase your rate of shareability, customers may repost your answers and share them with their feed, increasing customer traffic instantly.
Every piece of content that you put out on your platform should have a reason to, if it isn’t entertaining, answering a question or building your brand then what’s the point in posting it?
There are no such things as ‘filler posts’, if it isn’t informative or entertaining then don’t bother! It will be scrolled right past. Answer questions that people need to know and make sure you fill your feed with useful content!
Well, that’s basically it! If you follow these 5 steps, you will have brilliant social media channels filled with content that your audience will enjoy and likely share, increasing your chances of building a bigger customer base.
If you need any more help with social media, or you just don’t really know where to start, email our friends at Audience on hello@getaudience.co.uk and they’ll give you an extra helping hand.
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