In an era where exposure is not only an asset but also a currency, social media marketing is your most efficient method of increasing your brand awareness. Add to this the fact that it’s a cost-effective form of marketing, a method for you to establish a direct connection with your customers and boost their brand loyalty and what you get is a force to be reckoned with. Still, in order to use it effectively, what you need are some basic social media marketing rules to help you out in your decision-making process. Here are six of them you should start abiding by right away.
1. Diversify with different formats
While your audience may have their preference when it comes to content format, keep in mind that diversifying may keep things fresh. Also, this helps you solve the problem of inspiration, due to the fact that you get to cover the same story from different angles. A single phenomenon can be turned into a written post, a short video, an infographic or even a podcast episode where it’s discussed from various angles and standpoints.
Moreover, keep in mind that the location of a person, the device they’re using and the activity that they’re currently partaking in may affect their format preference. For instance, someone at home with a tablet may be willing to read through a 1000 words long post, whereas a person on their phone, in a waiting room, might be more willing to check out an infographic instead.
2. Know who you’re doing business with
The next thing you need to understand is the fact that your social media presence will get you in touch with so many different people, some of which will endorse you or promote your content. The thing is that while this can’t really be controlled, getting associated with some social media personas definitely isn’t in your best interest.
Therefore, before endorsing someone or asking them for some endorsement, it might be worth your while to check their social media history. This kind of vetting process can save you from a world of trouble in the nearest future. Ideally, you would go through their entire search history but, seeing as how this is impossible, going for a quick review of their activity can be just as good of an idea.
3. Research of your audience
The most important thing you need to do is to research your audience before posting anything online. You see, the exact hour when you decide to post is a major factor when it comes to your reach, seeing as how your primary demographic may not be available at the time or even present on the network that you’re currently posting at. This simple question and many others can be answered through the proper use of social media analytics. Other than this, such research can help you figure out other preferences of your audience, as well.
4. Find the right measure in content quantity
A frequency of publishing new content may determine the activity of your audience, however, you also risk getting them oversaturated with your content. In order to avoid this, you need to find the right measure. Presenting people with too many information will make them unable to memorize it all or even make them lose interest in this, to begin with. You want your audience to anticipate your content, not just fly over it like you didn’t even post anything. On the other hand, if you don’t post often enough, you risk being forgotten.
5. Make your content searchable
Imagine spending time on your own social media profile and noticing a post that you are interested in, yet, have no time looking at right away. Do you have to bookmark it or are you confident that you’re going to be able to find it in a couple of hours? Most people stick with the latter, seeing as how bookmarking may be reserved for domains with greater priority. Still, will they really be able to find this piece of content that easily? By doing proper content optimization, adding adequate tags and including intuitive hashtags, you might make this job a lot easier. This, potentially, increases not just your audience but also the number of qualified leads, seeing as how these people cared enough to look you up on their own.
6. Everything you post on social media stays online forever
The last thing you need to understand is that just because you’ve deleted a post mere minutes after it was first posted, this doesn’t mean that a lot of people don’t already have screenshots of the content in question. Even if they don’t use it right away, in a year, two or five you might get to see a backlash of this tiny slip in judgment. Sure, this is a hazard that you won’t ever be able to completely eliminate, yet, by being aware of this possibility, you will become a lot more careful.
The greatest problem with these six rules lies in the fact that they don’t necessarily align with what you’ve gotten used to during the use of your personal social media accounts. Therefore, this adjustment may not be as easy to make.
