Tips for Making Social Media Work for You

With so much advice regarding social media, it’s hard to know which practices to follow. One minute you’re advised to do this; the next something completely different. One of the reasons why the advice changes so much is that social media is flooded with new content every second. With so much competition, getting your brand to stand out takes more work, fresh thinking and creative approaches.

Let’s take a look at some helpful tips that can help social media work for you no matter what the latest trends are.

Show Off Your Visuals

Adding visuals creates more engagement. Rather than posting a predictable image next to your blog posts, try something new. Visual content comes in many forms such as short videos, memes, comics and GIFs. Work with your design team to get truly unique visuals out there, or outsource this task to an inbound agency. Visual content is highly shareable, so you’ll benefit from increased visibility, traffic, engagement and brand recognition.

Be Timely and Relevant

So many brands start sharing news that follows the latest trends. While it’s important to be aware of trending topics and join in real-time conversation, it’s not a bad idea to research future trends. Imagine being the first to share important news. This will help build trust in your followers and establish you as an industry leader.

Being timely and relevant requires some research. It can help to create an RSS feed with news updates for your industry. Bottom line: Don’t post yesterday’s news.

Create Catchy Post Titles

Your content will likely be skipped over if it doesn’t include a catchy title. Some of the most compelling post titles include questions, quotes and bold statements with statistics. You may have to do some split testing to see what works best for your audience, but at least be aware that what you post makes a huge difference in open rates.

Be Present on Your Channels

It’s best to be present on a few channels rather than be spread thin on all of them. So pick a few channels where you plan to be active and have a strong following. Then write up a detailed social media marketing strategy that outlines what you plan to post, when and on what channel. This ensures that you’re pushing out content and creating a brand presence that is consistent across channels.

The rules are always changing when it comes to social media, but it’s okay to make a few of your own too. It will take time before you find the perfect recipe for generating content, and it’s likely that some ingredients will need to be changed from time to time. Your goal is to find what main ingredients work for you so that you can be successful the majority of the time.

Need help getting social media to work for you? Give WSI Star Web a call for a consultation at 601-853-4449.