Social Media Marketing Unleashed: 11 Tips That Actually Work

As a marketer, you probably spend a lot of your time in search of the latest social media marketing tips. And for good reasons. Social media marketing is the way to reach out to the masses.

In the US alone, Social media usage has increased from 7% to 65% in the last decade. The rapid consumer adoption of platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram makes it nearly unthinkable for businesses to overlook social media. There’s so much opportunity for you to get in front of potential customers.

Increasingly, users are bombarded with product/service information on social media apps and websites. It comes in various forms like organic posts, sponsored content from influencers, digital ads, and product listings on many platforms, from Instagram to YouTube to Pinterest. 

People spend, on average 145 minutes a day on social media! That’s a large window of opportunity for you to capture the attention of potential customers. But with this fierce competition on the platform, standing out is not easy. It takes a lot of guesswork out of your social media marketing plan. 

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If you want to make your social media marketing strategy more effective or just have started your journey and looking for social media marketing tips, you have come to the right place. In this article, we will dig into what are the best practices for social media marketing? And tips for social media marketing that actually works. Let’s get started!

What Is Social Media Marketing (SMM)?

Basically, social media marketing refers to the utilization of social media to promote a business, brand, products, and services. Social media marketing provides businesses with an effective way to engage with existing customers and reach new ones. It involves publishing great content on your social media profiles, listening, and engaging your followers. 

Social media is a great platform to connect with your audience to build your brand value, increase sales, and drive website traffic. Social media marketing is all about connecting with your target audience and customers where they are and as they socially interact with each other and your brand.

While social media marketing as a whole is incredibly valuable and beneficial to your business growth, you need some tips for social media marketing to make it successful.

What Are The Best Practices For Social Media Marketing?

There is a saying- Practice makes progress, and marketers are continuously experimenting with their approach to social media to find the best way to engage with the target audience. We have compiled some of the best tried and tested social media marketing best practices to help you build a successful marketing campaign.

Learn Everything About Your Target Audience:

If you keep asking what are the best practices for social media marketing? It is the wrong question. What you should be asking is who your target audience is. If you have no idea who your audience is, how can you possibly know what they want? 

It is the base of your social media marketing. You need to know everything about your target audience. Are they millennials, single moms, kids with canines? That’s a start, do the research and rely more on data, less on your gut. Get clear about your current customers, too. So you can find and make new ones with the same traits.

Choose Suitable Platforms For Your Business:

It is one of the most common mistakes businesses make over and over. And it is simply one of the best tips for social media marketing. Rather than using all the social media platforms, focus on channels where most of your target audiences are. Avoid using many social media platforms, and spreading your efforts is a waste of time.

For example, if your target audience is primarily teens, putting up your efforts on a LinkedIn profile for your brand shouldn’t be a priority. Instead, focus on the platforms teens actually use, like Instagram or TikTok. On the other hand, if you are marketing products targeted to parents, you should instead look to Facebook.

Claim Your Social Media Handles And Usernames:

Your social media handle and username are crucial for your brand identity. Even if your brand name is unique, its availability as a social media username (handle) is not guaranteed. A good rule of thumb is to proclaim your usernames across multiple social media platforms as soon as possible. Until you decide to devote more time to a particular platform or delete your account.

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. 

Have A Plan:

Having a solid plan is imperative if you want to jumpstart your social media marketing strategy. Without a goal for your business, you can not achieve it. You would be putting your efforts to waste. One of the best tips for social media marketing is to have an objective.

Your social media goals should align with your overall marketing efforts.

Writing down your goals is paramount if you want to reach them.

According to research, you are 30% more likely to be successful if you write your goals down. In some studies that number is as high as 40%. When you set your goals, make them attainable and break them down into smaller action steps.

Let The Social Media Marketing Tools Empower Your Strategy:

Social media tools are going to be your redeemer. Imagine managing 8 different platforms and posting manually on each of them 3 times a day.

Damn, what a nightmare! All you’ll possibly do is publish rashly without any real productivity.

So, let’s leave the tedious work for the tools, shall we?

Yup, that is possible! Try to automate as much of the activity as possible. For example, schedule your social media updates ahead of time.

Use social media scheduling tools like Socioboard to auto-post your updates to all your social accounts, then evaluate the results with the analytics they provide.

Save time and grow your small business using Socioboard. Publish and schedule messages to all your social media channels from a single dashboard. You can engage with your followers and monitor what people are saying about your brand online. 

Keep an Eye on The Competition:

When putting together any kind of business strategy, spying on what your competitors are doing is critical. Because if you don’t, they’ll get the upper hand. Also, to learn from what they’re doing, to help you decide what you should (and shouldn’t) be doing. It is the same for social media marketing strategy. Accessibility and availability make it especially easy to find, track and analyze competitors versus traditional marketing and media mediums.

Build a Relationship With Your Customers:

Trust is a crucial thing for a brand. Building trust with your customers is a key factor for the long-term success of your business. According to research, 74% of younger people do not like being targeted by brands on social media. Two-way communication is vital to building trust with these generations. 

Using sources such as blogs and online communities holds far more credibility than traditional advertising. Younger users want an experience that feels organic and authentic. The best way to create trust is to have a sense of connection with customers. That way, you can build a network of trusted stakeholders around your brand.

Monitor Industry-Relevant Conversations:

Like social listening, social monitoring is about knowing what people think of your brand. There are tools like Socioboard to help you know- if someone mentions a brand, using which hashtags, and other trends in your industry. Think of social monitoring as the basis for social listening. Monitor to learn from the past. Listen to create your future.

Establish Your Social Media Voice and Tone:

Your social media accounts are an extension of your brand and should, therefore, align with your other forms of brand messaging. Maintaining a consistent voice helps your brand be recognizable among competitors and stay true to its values.

If your brand hasn’t defined its voice, it’s a good idea to lay out some guidelines for your team. Consider why your brand exists, what it values, how you want to describe your brand, and how you want customers to feel when interacting with your brand.

You can even use your customer and competitor research to help determine which sort of brand voice will resonate with your target audience. 

Share Customer Feedback — Especially When It’s Positive:

When your customers experience satisfactory resolution to specific issues, and in particular those using social channels, ask that customer if you can share those conversations or if they would like to leave a review. Not just on your social channels, but internally as well. Building internal excitement and encouraging a collaborative approach to social participation can transform your employees into brand advocates.

Don’t Repost The Same Message Across All The Platforms:

Posting the same (exact) content across your social channels seems efficient. Why reinvent or rewrite a piece multiple times versus one time?

But, like tip number nine above, reposting is another way to look lazy and sloppy.

Instead, craft a new message for every network and post.

Yes, it takes more time and work. But maybe not as much as you think. No need to start from scratch—but do make some tweaks.

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Wrapping Words:

Every marketer has their own approach to social media. Some may find that just posting organic content works best for their brand, while others choose to only use it to run ads. Whatever your method, effectiveness comes down to a simple guiding principle: maintain a consistent, engaging presence. And Socioboard can help you do all these things, so try it today!