You are not a beginner anymore. You know Facebook, know how to properly format your posts, how to respond to comments and where to find engaging content to post. You might even know about the conversion tracking pixel and have been using it to track the success of your boosted posts. But what’s next? Do you just keep doing what you are doing now or is there more to it?
With social media, like with most online marketing strategies, there is always room for improvement. Here are a few ways you can step up your game and take your social media success to the next level.
Expand Your Channels
We got it, you know your way around Facebook. But what about Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Vine, Periscope, etc.? Did you know that Instagram users are the most engaged with brands of all major social networks? Or that on Pinterest more people than just your followers find and see your pins organically without the need to advertise (*gives Facebook an evil look*)?
The point is to never stop looking for new opportunities to get your name in front of your target audience. You don’t have to maintain a presence on every social network, but be sure to at least evaluate how each one fits or doesn’t fit with your business strategy.
Do More Real-Time Marketing
It’s nice to have all your tweets and Facebook posts scheduled in advance to go out on selected dates and times. It gives you the type of satisfaction you get from organizing your pantry or having your business trip all planned out a month ahead. But as you might know, life doesn’t care about your plans. Sometimes, global or local events happen that require your immediate reaction or that present a unique business opportunity.
Maybe a major food recall has just been announced and you want to be the first to warn the followers of your wellness clinic. Or maybe some celebrity has just worn a dress to the Grammy Awards that looks very similar to what you sell—let your fans know how to get the look for less! The latter example is a form of newsjacking: taking something news-worthy and aligning it with your brand. When done right, it can help you get in front of a large audience of interested people, and maybe even have your content go viral.
Use Analytics to Dig Deeper
It’s good that you are doing awesome new things with Facebook, but do you know what’s working and what isn’t? As your business grows and your social media budget grows with it, you want to make sure you are putting time and money toward practices that bring the biggest return on your effort. The $15 you spend on a boosted post may not matter much right now, but when you sink in a couple hundred and barely get any results, this may hurt you financially. Checking social analytics and constantly fine-tuning your content and campaigns is the way to go.
Understand and Segment Your Audience
Do you know who your fans are? Do you know what type of people you want to attract on social media and later convert them to buy from you? Without having a good understanding of your target audience, you can’t successfully reach them with your messages. And your target audience is not always uniform either. For example, if you are an auto repair shop, your initial instinct may be to market to men from in their mid-20s and up. But in your research, you may find that a lot of your customers and followers on social media are actually single women who find value in your car maintenance tips. Not only can you design separate ads for men and women respectively, but you can also target both genders with posts that only they would see.
Consider Hiring a Pro
As you can see, there is a lot to do with social media if you want to take full advantage of the available tools. And as social networks change and evolve, there are always new features to learn and new ways to engage your audience. At some point, doing everything in-house may get overwhelming, especially if you don’t have dedicated staff who handle social media. If you want to be serious about social media, instead of treating it as a side responsibility of your customer service person, you should hire a company to help you out. Certainly, no one knows your business as well as you do, but we know marketing, and by working together we can do great things to leverage social influence.
Contact us today to discuss how we can help you take your social media game to the next level.