Social media is a huge part of our everyday lives, and it can certainly be a powerful tool and key component involved in growing and maintaining a successful business if it is utilized strategically. In this month’s Vortex Marketing Blog we will share helpful tips and tricks for social media marketing.
Only Post During Specific Hours of the Day
Posting during specific hours of the day is important because it will increase your reach.
More people are likely to view your post and interact with social media during certain hours of the day and on certain days.
Your target demographic/audience will determine the days and best times of the day to post. For example, Facebook offers insight tools to view who your audience is, what they’re interested in, and where they’re located. If your audience is primarily college students, it would likely be in your best interest to post later in the day and on weekends rather than at 9am. If your audience is between the ages of 35-45 then posting around 1-2pm would be most beneficial in order to catch this age group on their lunch break.
We have found that for business professionals, the best days to post are Tuesdays, Wednesday and Thursday. The best times for our target demographic is late morning or early afternoon based on average lunch times and breaks at work. Those are the time periods you will want your post to go live because it will be the first thing viewers see when they open their social media during or after their lunch break. You will need to do some testing to see what your best days and times are.
Stay on a Posting Schedule
Once you have narrowed down when the best time to post is, it is vital to continue posting at that time, and commit to posting a certain number of times per week or per month. Consistent, quality posting signals to the social media platform’s algorithm that you are a reputable account. This marker means that your posts will be shown to more people, creating more reach and engagement for you. Consistent posting also keeps your name relevant to viewers, who will view your content as professional if they can expect and trust to see your posts regularly.
Create a Content Calendar
Creating a content calendar can help ensure you have quality content ready to post when you need it live. The extent of your calendar may vary depending on the amount of work you have ready to showcase. However, at minimum it is ideal to have a week’s worth of posts edited and ready to go live.
There are different ways to organize this type of calendar. One way is to use Google Spreadsheets. Creating a section in the document for each part of the post such as “Verbiage” “Image” and “Call to Action” is most beneficial. Or, if you prefer visuals, Google Documents is a good alternative. Simply dropping the image in, writing out the verbiage, and creating your ideal spacing for the post is helpful because all you need to do when creating the post on social media is copy and paste it. Also, Google allows you to share your work whether you choose to use their spreadsheets or documents. Any member of your team can be given access to view, edit, and sign off on work which can make collaboration easier and more efficient.
Utilize the Scheduling Option
Large social media platforms like Facebook and Instagram allow you to schedule your posts in advance. This is another tool to help you stay consistent and higher up on the algorithm. If you know what time(s) works best for you, and what days of the week you prefer to post on, you can knock out a week, a month, or even multiple months worth of posting in an hour. When creating the post there is a drop-down menu next to the “Save and Publish” option where you can click on “Save and Schedule.” After clicking on this option you are then prompted with what month, day of the week, and time you would like the specific social media post to go live. At any time before the post goes live you are able to go back and edit this post, change when you would like it to go live, or choose to cancel posting it all together.
Create a Uniform Look for Your Posts
Creating a uniform look for your posts goes hand in hand with staying consistent. When you create and stick to a certain format in your posts, viewers and potential clients are going to be able to better recognize that this is your specific post out of the millions on their feed. This helps current followers find and engage with your posts much easier than if you were trying out a different format every week, and it also helps potential clients identify you quicker, and better understand what your business is about.
Use Popular Hashtags Incognito
Most people know that hashtags help increase reach and put your social media posts on additional pages with other similar posts. However, doing research online about which hashtags are most popular in regard to the content you are posting will be more beneficial than randomly typing out hashtags you think are the best fit. There are a plethora of websites out there that have already done the research for you, it is up to you to make a few extra clicks to find out which hashtags will put your posts in front of the most relevant clients.
However, having a large paragraph of hashtags in a post or caption is not the most aesthetically pleasing, and can sometimes cheapen up the look of your post. A simple way to combat this while still reaping the benefits of hashtags is to simply put the hashtags in the comments of your social media posts immediately after it has gone live. Doing so still puts your post on all of the pages you hashtagged, while concealing them in your comment section.
Keep it Short
Nobody wants to read a long, wordy paragraph while they’re scrolling, nor do they have time. Keep your posts short and to the point. The easiest way to achieve this is to start by writing out everything you know you want to say, then slowly chip away at any redundant words until you get to the concise point of your message.
Vortex Business Solutions offers digital marketing and targeted Social Media advertising.
Visit VortexBusinessSolutions.com or call us at 319.354.0019 for a free consultation today!
