So you want to know what are the best practices for social media marketing tools? Or maybe you’ve heard rumors about the best practices for social media 2021 and want the truth? Well if you’re alive today and on this planet, then don’t worry. I won’t be using any time machines or traveling through wormholes to reveal the secret of what are the best practices for social media marketing tools. Do you want to learn what are the best practices for social media marketing tools? Or perhaps you’re interested in learning about best practices for social media 2021? You can find out all these answers and more by checking out this social media best practices guide.
There has been a lot of talk about what are the best practices for social media marketing tools. Well here is a social media guide for employees who want to know the best practices for social media 2021.
Define your audience
Social media allows you to both broaden your audience and narrow it at the same time: while you can make your public, organic content available to anyone and everyone on social apps, you can also target your content toward relevant segments of the millions of people who use social platforms every day.
Knowing detailed information about the kind of customer you’re trying to attract via social media will help determine what, where, and when you post content. So before you do anything else, you need to identify the target audience for your brand or product.
Who is the intended user of your product? What are the characteristics and behaviors of your existing customers? What are their favorite social platforms? Once you’ve pinned down these details, you can take steps to ensure your social media content is reaching the right eyes.
Be Active
Lastly, in order to make these strategies as effective as possible it is key to post frequently. On LinkedIn, one post per day is a good place to start, and one to two posts per day on Facebook is appropriate. Tweeting as often as once an hour is appropriate. When tweeting links, feel free to tweet them more than once in a given day because it is easy to miss individual tweets in the fast-moving stream of information.
Be Engaging
When posting information through social media, remember to engage your audience. Using a conversational tone, ask your members what they think about a particular topic. This turns your page into a large discussion board, rather than just a place for formal communication. Listening and responding to what is said on your page fosters further participation in the discussion, so be sure to read everything and reply within a day or two. One tip for sparking discussion is to relate your product or area of service to a noteworthy national event, and pose a question around it to encourage discussion on your page.
Don’t Just Join, Add Value
When joining in on conversations on social networks or blogs, avoid just jumping into the middle of the discussion to deliver a sales pitch. It would go a lot farther to add the knowledge and expertise you have to offer. Even if they do not directly promote traffic to your page, posts, comments, and tweets with relevant tips, notes on advances in research, or new trends in the field will help bolster your company’s image and reputation. These types of posts indirectly drive traffic to your page as users may visit for quality information; using your site as a resource will lead them to your product. One easy way to get started with this is when retweeting on Twitter or sharing links on Facebook, add your own original comments instead of simply reposting the information. This provides another opportunity for customers to hear your voice, as well as shows them your original knowledge in the topic area.
Tell Customers and Members Where You Are
Just because you have a presence on social media alongside so many consumers does not necessarily mean they know to look for you. One of the most crucial practices in social media marketing is placing links to your company’s Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc. pages in employee email signatures and on the company website. This will draw loyal customers to your pages, and their sharing of your content will be a valuable source of growth.
Don’t use every existing platform
Using more platforms is not necessarily better; spreading your efforts over too many channels can end up being a waste of time. While research shows similar rates of overall social media use in the U.S. across gender, income, and education levels, there’s a ton of variation in terms of which age groups use which platforms.
For example, if your target audience is primarily teens, setting up a perfectly-optimized LinkedIn profile for your brand shouldn’t be a priority — you should instead head to the platforms teens actually use, like TikTok. On the other hand, if you’re selling products targeted to parents, you should instead look to Facebook.
Take a look at which platforms your target audience uses, and make two lists: one with the platforms they use most, and one with the platforms they don’t use as much. Focus on building your social media presence through the former.
New social media platforms emerge all the time, but here are the most popular ones you should consider right now:
- YouTube
- TikTok
I’ll also note here that Amazon has its own mini social media platform built into its marketplace: Amazon Posts. Sellers can post recycled Instagram content and earn “followers” who can receive updates from their brand on Amazon.
The platforms you choose will also come down to the kind of content you want to create. If you produce a lot of videos, you’ll want to share them on YouTube, Instagram, and/or TikTok. Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok are great places to garner influencer- and user-generated content. If you want to build a community around your brand or niche, try Facebook and Pinterest, where you can easily post instructional content and lifestyle images to large groups of friends and followers. Finally, LinkedIn can benefit brands who want to target career professionals or other businesses. It can also help establish a credibility in your niche.
Claim your handles and usernames before they’re gone
Your brand name is unique, but its availability as a social media username — also known as a handle — isn’t guaranteed. By sheer coincidence or calculated strategy, the handle that most closely matches your brand name (like @nike, @starbucks, or @junglescout) could already be in use in any number of platforms.
A good rule of thumb is to claim your usernames across multiple social media platforms as soon as possible, even if you’re not sure you’ll use them much. Until you decide to either devote more time to a particular platform or delete your account, just make sure you post something every so often, or your account could be disabled due to “username squatting.”
Keep the handles as similar as possible — both to each other and your brand name — across different platforms, so customers can easily find your official accounts. If you can’t claim your exact brand name, try some of these relevant variations.
Once you attract enough of a following on each platform, you can apply for verification badges on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, and Pinterest. The “blue check mark” instantly lends more legitimacy to your brand’s official profile.
Find your voice and set your tone
On social media, you can let your brand personality shine. Photo captions, video scripts, live streams, and your bio content each represent great opportunities to make your mission resonate with existing and potential followers.
Use voice and tone to create a specific mood for your brand. What kind of emotions do you want to elicit from your audience? If your brand was a person, what character traits would they possess? What adjectives do you want your audience to associate with your brand? Let your answers to these questions guide how your brand speaks on social platforms.
If you’re not sure where to start, try using the “big five” brand personality traits as a jumping off point:
- Excitement
- Sincerity
- Ruggedness
- Competence
- Sophistication
You can mix and match your emphasis on each of these traits to form a unique identity for your brand.
You may want to change your tone as you create content for different platforms, especially when switching from speaking to a more casual or playful audience (like Instagram or TikTok) to one that’s more intellectual or professional (like Twitter or LinkedIn).
Customers hold high expectations in terms of how brands should conduct themselves on social media. Content trends and popularity can shift wildly in the blink of an eye, and it’s incredibly easy to alienate your audience by recycling overplayed lingo or memes. But get it right, and your brand could reach viral notoriety — and the boost in sales that comes with that.
Study the vocabulary your audience uses — how do they talk about products like yours? Speak the language of your target consumer.
Conclusion:
While there are many social media marketing tools that can boost your efforts to engage with customers, you need to know what are the best practices for social media marketing tools. Often, marketers fall into the trap of using too many different apps and platforms, when all they need is a single tool that could have been a better fit.