Hate it or love it, social media is an unavoidable part of internet marketing.
With an effective social media strategy, brands can attract new customers, build trust with their audience, and maintain the following they’ve spent time building and growing.
But how many followers are actually active on social media?
Facebook alone has it 2.93 billion monthly active users, making it the most popular social media platform.
Instagram is next with 100,000,000 Users per month, Pinterest has 433 million per month, and Twitter has it 229 million daily active users.
Now, let’s break down social media into everyday use.
How much time does someone spend on social media each day?
People all over the world spend approx Two and a half hours on social media platforms every day.
And remember: this is just an average.
Some will take much longer.
This means that there is a high chance of getting someone’s attention with a multi-platform social media strategy.
But, with the ever-changing algorithms across social media platforms, creating a content plan can be a challenging task to get right.
And whether you are a local or international brand, you can benefit from learning how to better reach your audience on social media.
Here, you’ll learn the best tips for creating effective social media posting strategies to reach your followers and gain new followers.
10 tips for creating engaging social media posts
1. Do your research
Find out what different types of content will resonate best with your target audience.
Then try posting questions to get your audience talking.
This can help drive engagement while enabling you to gather key information about what kind of products your audience likes best, questions they might have about your brand, and insight into what they’re interested in knowing when it comes to your brand.
You can also try expanding on some popular topics by highlighting quotes or lifestyle posts that communicate best with your target market.
If your brand has a consistent blog on their website, you can take advantage of the topics you have discussed on the blog and share them across social media.
This will help you build authority on the topics you discuss, educate your followers, and bring more people back to your website.
Another thing to keep in mind is that people love getting free stuff.
So, try creating different contests or giveaways that require your followers to like and share the post, and ask them to tag a couple of friends.
Brands should also consider giving their followers a behind-the-scenes look at what’s going on with the brand.
This could mean sharing what your company loves most, or taking a peek at product development.
Once you start researching and exploring what your target market likes to see on social media, you will definitely increase your engagement and be able to create more compelling content.
2. Look at your competition
Another simple yet effective strategy is to see what your competitors are doing.
What are they posting about? What topics are they talking about?
What tags do they use?
What tactics do they use to communicate with their target market?
For example, does their content work better on Instagram or Facebook?
You can learn from your competitor’s social media strategy on each platform.
Plus, you get to watch a competitor’s trials and errors – so you can learn from them, and avoid mistakes that might have been made.
3. Stick to the brand voice
If the company you’re creating content for doesn’t have a brand or tone guide, it’s time to create one.
Is the brand playful and fun? Or direct and dangerous?
Addressing the style and personality of posts in the Brand Guide can help with content consistency across the website and social media.
Other aspects you can add to the brand guide are the color palettes and fonts that the social media manager should use when posting.
Developing a brand guide can help mitigate potential issues because it sets standards that a person must adhere to when creating content.
To ensure the effectiveness of the brand guide, the brand’s voice must be clear.
When your followers see a post, they need to know exactly what business they are looking for.
This will help them remember the brand better over time.
4. Nurturing relationships
Whatever brand guide you decide is best for the business, it’s important to stay positive and engaging in all of your posts.
Think of every social media platform as a way to tell a story.
Make sure every post is intentional and takes your followers on a journey to learn more about your brand, or get them excited about your products or services.
Each post is a touchpoint that comes across their feed and should be a positive reminder that keeps them interested in the brand.
5. Keep it short and simple
While storytelling is crucial, social media is no place to write your next novel.
Sometimes, people treat social media as their diary, or simply over-explain a topic.
But for most brands, this isn’t the way to go.
Long, time-consuming posts can leave your followers uninterested and may lead them to unfollow your brand.
Yikes.
It is essential to get their attention by making your posts short, simple and clear.
After someone reads your post, they should know their next step or CTA (call to action).
6. Add a compelling CTA
Like the post, your CTA should be short, clear, and engaging.
While including one CTA is essential, you can strategically place more than one in a post.
Let’s say you’re publishing a product post – what if a customer isn’t ready to visit your website and buy?
You can direct them to a blog on how to use this product, or to an Instagram Reel featuring an influencer using the product.
A compelling CTA is essential for any form of content, especially on social media, so users don’t scroll to other posts without knowing why they’re only reading your post.
CTAs help guide people to their next step in the customer journey.
7. Use photos and videos
Attractive images, infographics, product images, and videos can help increase engagement and interest in your social media content.
The good thing is that you don’t need a big budget to start publishing.
Advancements in today’s phones have made it easier to take high quality product photos and upload them to social media.
Getting the right lighting and angle can help you create stellar photos on a dime.
It’s also easy to invest in inexpensive, high-quality backgrounds for your photos.
Additionally, many resources on YouTube and across the web can provide helpful tips for taking great photos.
While creating original content is very important, it can be difficult to maintain even for big brands.
To help create several social media posts per week, you can easily purchase stock photos online or create graphics on platforms like Canva.
We’ll talk more about useful social media content platforms in a minute.
While we’re on the subject, it’s helpful to point out that videos are another great way to connect with your audience.
Brands can use videos to further describe a topic or product, to answer important questions, or to give a sneak peek at upcoming events.
An important thing to note for social media managers is that when uploading photos and videos to social media, it is necessary to check the size of each of them.
Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, Twitter, and LinkedIn each have their own specifications.
Each stand has recommended sizes to ensure the image is clear when customers view it on their phones, tablets and laptops.
If the image is sized incorrectly, the quality may be negatively affected, which can hurt your social media interaction.
Hint: If you’re using Meta Business Suites (for Facebook and Instagram content management), it provides the recommended size for images and videos when you upload a post.
8. Post at the right time
On top of the content size specification, the timing of the publication is also important.
There are also the best times and days of the week to post in each industry.
This may take some trial and error to get it right.
If you’re new to social media management, it’s important to do your research and test different frequencies for posting.
This will help you determine when your audience is online, and the best days to get the most views and interactions.
If you use Meta Business Suites or other social media content management platforms, they will likely suggest the best days and times to post on social media, which can give you a place to start.
9. Posts dedicated to the platform
People go to different platforms for different reasons.
It’s important to keep this in mind and make sure you’re creating posts that are platform-appropriate.
When it comes to Facebook and Instagram, identifying the right hashtags – and the right number of hashtags – is critical to making sure you reach your existing audience and find new ones.
Additionally, knowing the right type of media to use for each platform, and potential topics to discuss, can help you grow your audience and engage with followers on each platform.
10. Create your own social media strategy
Social media managers use content planners to schedule posts for the week, month, or quarter.
This way, they have everything set up, and if edits need to be made, they can easily edit a post while keeping everything organized across platforms.
While it is crucial to plan posts to stay in touch with followers, the plan must be supported by a sound social media strategy.
The social media strategy should be based on business goals and the availability of the people who will be running the platforms.
To make it easier for anyone managing social media platforms, it’s helpful to create a standard operating procedure for posting procedures and guidelines for responding to comments and direct messages.
Like most business practices, social media practices will evolve over time.
You should leverage social media insights to see what works and what doesn’t, and inform future strategies.
Once these tips are combined to create an effective social media strategy, they will also help improve your overall SEO efforts.
Useful platforms for creating social media content
A social media content creation platform like Canva can help content marketers and social media managers make better use of their time.
It’s about working smarter, not harder.
These platforms often have creative templates and ideas that you can customize to your liking when creating posts.
It’s especially useful when it comes to simple posts like quote posts or questions.
They also have easy templates for holiday posts, and with a few quick tweaks, you can celebrate the holidays with your followers.
If you’d like to check out a couple more social media content platforms before committing to one, try these five best Canva alternatives:
- Adobe Express.
- stencil.
- Visme.
- Vista.
- snap.
Final thoughts
Social media management is crucial for brands to grow their audience and reach new customers.
It is one of the most effective ways to communicate online and keep people informed.
With that in mind, it’s crucial for brands to do their research, create an accent guide, and create a social media strategy that provides their employees or freelancers with the tools they need to grow an audience from their target market.
If you stick to social media posting advice and become as adaptable as the ever-changing algorithms of social media, you will see results backed by social media insights and metrics.
More resources:
- 11 proven tips to get more social media followers
- How to use GMB posts and Facebook events for local marketing
- Social Media Marketing: A Complete Strategy Guide
Featured image: Master1305/Shutterstock
