BlogEffective Social Media Posting: 8 Tips for Businesses
Social media has been providing entrepreneurs and SME’s a
great way to establish an online presence and reach out to their target
audience directly and in real-time. However, with so much information overload
on the customers already, businesses often find themselves scrambling for
attention, let alone spurring some level of engagement through their social
media updates.
Being a “Social
Media Enthusiast” myself and having spent years dealing with the
good and sometimes not so good aspects of this powerful digital marketing
arsenal, I think it’s always nice to go back to the basics once in a while and
make sure that you have considered everything before you hit the publish
button.
Just
as important as it is for your business to go through a regular content strategy health-check, it’s equally important to
get your social media strategy right! Take a look at the checklist below and
tick off each one as you craft your next social media update.
1.
Is
the Message Adding Value?
Your
company’s content strategy and social media strategy overlap on
several major boundaries. Content that’s not interesting cannot make an
interesting update. Interesting content for your audience could be educational provides
solutions to problems, or entertaining!
Ask
Yourself: - Will anyone even care about
reading this? If that post appeared in your timeline, will you pause to read it
or share? If the answer is no, don’t post!
2.
Limit
the Size of the Update!
Every
piece of content you create should be just as long as it takes to convey the
message and no longer than that! Twitter allows you to limit your posts to 140
characters so you need to be really creative with that.
Google
allows for 100,000 characters, LinkedIn, 600, while for Facebook the character
limit is 64,206. However, according to research the shorter a post is
the more chances it has of catching attention and getting people to read.
Ideally,
70-100 characters for Twitter, 40 for Facebook and 60 for Google+.
3.
Check and Recheck the URL!
Sure
you are linking your update to your website in order to entice readers into
taking some action, but wait; is that URL correct? By correct I mean two
things. One: make sure it’s working and two: Ask yourself if it makes sense
when stringed together with the update.
What
can make things even worse than a bad or inappropriate URL, is a deceptive URL
that promises to take the reader to a great post but instead lands them on a
sales page. It’s always a good idea to click on the URL and see where it takes
you before posting it.
4.
Does the Post Have the Right
Keywords?
Keywords
and hashtags ensure your post gets the kind of exposure you are looking for. If
you know your niche and your target audience, you probably also know what kind
of things they are interested in. Try using keywords and hashtags with respect
to their interests as well as your business offerings. This way your post will
get found easily and will make more sense to your audience.
5.
Does the Update have Visual
Appeal?
Words
matter, but not as much as visuals. Visuals have the power to grab the viewers’
attention within seconds and convince them to listen. If it makes sense adding
visuals, do so in an intuitive way. Using images is one of the top tactics
to make your post appeal to your target audience.
Try
testing this theory by using the same post with and without an image and check
the analytics. You won’t be disappointed!
6.
Set the Posting Frequency
Right!
The
right and wrong for this varies from business to business. However, businesses
must learn to strike the right balance between being informative and being
annoying. The best way of doing it is to predict, measure and repeat what
worked, as suggested by Dan Wilkerson of LunaMetrics.
Researchers
have found that the optimal frequency of per day posting is: Facebook: 2,
Twitter: 3-5, Google+: 2, Instagram: 3, and LinkedIn: 1.
7.
Are You Ready to Take
Responsibility for it?
Every
post doesn’t result in sweets and flowers! Sometimes what you post can
backfire. Especially so when your business does not have a clearly laid out set
of guidelines on social media policy, and while you have checked your post
for all of the above mentioned criteria, the voice of your update might still
be sending out a wrong signal about your brand.
Once
the post goes viral, there’s very little you can do to stop the damage.
8.
Is Your Business Making the
Most of the Posting Opportunity?
Finally,
ask yourself if there is anything you can add or remove from the post to make
it more impactful! Each post gives you a new opportunity to portray your
business in the best possible light, solve a problem for your customers, and
get more people talking about your brand.
Going
through the above mentioned checklist will ensure maximum quality of each post
that goes out resulting in higher engagement and stronger reputation for your
brand.
