Nobody likes to have their time wasted. And often social media posts leave people feeling like they’ve wasted their time.
SEO Trick or Treat
A digital marketing strategy is always more effective if you step back and look at the bigger picture before jumping in and sporadically creating content. When done correctly, a social media strategy can reach a lot of people and raise brand awareness and bring in business and/or leads. As an SEO professional, these tips are focused on how to help your overall social media strategy and your digital footprint.
How to Write Effective Social Media Posts
The 3 Biggest Mistakes on Social Media
- Your Business Looks Abandoned or Closed. The number one biggest mistake is being inconsistent or simply stopping your social media. The result is your social media business pages remain on the internet looking very much abandoned and can lead people to even think that your business is closed. If you don’t want to continue, consider deleting your account. No account is better than an abandoned one.
- Not Using Imagery. As people scroll through their social media, it is usually the visuals that catch someone’s attention. If you add a post without a photo or graphic – you are not attracting your reader’s attention.
- Duplicating Everything Everywhere. Content that does well on LinkedIn isn’t likely to see that same success on Twitter or Facebook if posts are simply copied and pasted across every channel. Be mindful of the recommended content length and the image size requirements on each social media platform. Also, you are targeting different audiences on different social media platforms.
Tips for Your Social Media Campaign
- Goals: Each post should address a specific goal. Brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, generate new leads/business, boost engagement (likes, shares, comments), and effective social customer service.
- 80/20 social media rule. 80% of your social media posts should educate, entertain, or offers a solution to their problems. 20% should explicitly promote your business (products/services).
- Vary The Types of Posts: Video, photos, infographics, text, memes, links to blog posts, press releases, web pages, and perhaps other social media.
- Make it visual. Include a photo, graphic, or video. (don’t use copyright images – there can be huge fines). And consider branding your graphics. If are using your own photography or graphics make sure it’s branded so you get the credit when it’s shared. Also, branding provides a cohesive look when someone first comes to your business page.
- Create Engaging Content. People are more likely to comment when you ask a question, want their opinions or feedback.
- Repurpose BLOG articles. Add links to blog articles. Provide a catchy headline, a teaser, &/or an excerpt. Link directly to the blog post.
- Create a Content Calendar. And consider creating some rules to keep you on track. Ex: 1 monthly give-away. Create a weekly “column” like FAQ Friday.
- Engage with your community. Don’t just post and leave. Look at what your followers are saying and reply.
- Make sure your profile photo/logo is a square and is identifiable when shrunk to the “post” viewer level. If your photo/logo is 500×500 pixels you will be fine on most social media channels (Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter…).
Facebook Post TIPS
- The ideal post is 40-80 characters.
- Boosting a post can help get more followers or likes on your post.
- Using the Ad Center can hit your same target audience be the ad engagement is not part of your post stats. These ads are good for repeat ads.
LinkedIn Post TIPS
Don’t treat LinkedIn like it is a clone of Facebook. Linkedin is a business networking platform.
- The ideal post is 100-140 characters. After 140 you will ‘see more’
- Publish Articles. Longer posts can be published as “articles”. (typically an article is over 2000 words)
- Add hashtags in moderation. Pick a few good hashtags. Research your hashtags first.