Keeping the “Social” in Social Media

Taylor Brazell – Account Executive

A common frustration we see with social media marketing is that brands are consistently posting, but their engagement rates or follower counts are not where they want them to be. In these situations, many are quick to assume they should be posting more, but that is not necessarily the best strategy.

Quality is much more important than quantity in marketing, and social media is no exception. An important aspect of driving engagement is understanding the unique needs of the medium. Marketers would never try to include several pages of text into a single page ad, nor would they submit a single paragraph as an article. Social media has its own rules and best practices as well and understanding them can help craft strategy that drives engagement and leads.

Purposeful Posting

Driving up meaningful behaviors starts with effective post construction. As the name would imply, social media is all about personal connections and sharing stories directly with the people we care about most. Posts about people, including success stories, testimonials and staff images, tend to do better than stagnant product shots or stock images. The audience on social media wants to access who a brand is, and giving them what they want is key to growing the page.

Fitting content to the individual platform is important as well. LinkedIn posts are generally more professional in tone with emphasis on thought leadership and business developments, while Facebook and Instagram are more people-oriented and ideal for feel-good content. Posting just to create content without any strategic direction rarely, if ever, produces the same results as tailoring to the platform.

The Best Action Is Interaction

Another key component of optimizing social media engagement is by directly encouraging it. Tagging individuals and other companies when relevant is a great way to drive them to interact with posts and even encourage them to like or share to their own network of followers. Brands can also provoke these behaviors from their own followers by encouraging them to “comment below” to share experiences and participate in conversations.

In addition, brands should be participating in the exact behaviors they are looking to grow. Social media is a two-way street, and when a brand is liking, commenting on and sharing posts from others, they are likely to see the same activity reciprocated. Brands should also interact with comments and shares on their own posts with likes, replies and other acknowledgements. This shows appreciation for the audience participation and a willingness to join in on conversations to help viewers better understand the brand.

Support for social media can also be built into other tactics, such as email blasts, tradeshow collateral and more. By directing new leads and prospects to social channels as a source of information, brands can continue to organically build on their numbers and drive positive results.

No Shame in Snooping

Social media provides direct contact with brands and their content in a way no medium ever has before. Customers, both current and prospective, are usually the primary beneficiaries of this access, but companies can take advantage of it too. Competitive research on social media is a great way to gain insight into how a brand can be driving up engagement, especially if a rival is performing better in certain metrics. Everything they post is fair game for marketers to learn from, use to adapt their own posts and exceed with their own KPIs.

Beyond Behaviors

Driving up likes, comments, shares and followers on social media is not just about individual metrics. Algorithms see these numbers as an indication of viewer demand. The more interactions a page has, the more the algorithm will serve it in front of similar audiences, which creates a positive cycle of growth begetting more growth.

Just like any other marketing effort, social media is ultimately a step towards growing qualified leads. Enhancing social strategy doesn’t just boost impressions and behaviors; it can have a direct impact on increasing revenue.