To remind you that more than half of the world population (3.8 billion people) now use social media is perhaps repeating what you might already know. But this number represents a huge opportunity for businesses looking to increase their reach and spark engagement.
But here is the thing:
Regardless of the popularity of social media in the digital marketing world, businesses of all sizes are still struggling to get better results with their social media marketing strategies.
Besides, more and more brands are experimenting with new and exciting social media tactics to reach and engage with their target customers.
In this blog post, you’re going to discover 10 social media marketing tactics you can use to boost your social media campaigns and generate maximum results.
So without much ado, let’s get right inside.
1. Decide What You Want to Achieve With Your Social Media Marketing Campaigns
Perhaps part of the reasons many businesses fail to get maximum results with their social media strategies is because they don’t set relevant and realistic goals.
Having a social media account for your brand is one thing and getting great results out of social media is another.
Typically, social media marketing goals help to stir growth. They provide brands with a picture of where they want to reach.
So, when planning your social media campaigns, start by setting relevant and achievable goals.
But your goals shouldn’t only be relevant and realistic.
They should be:
SMART
As mentioned above, setting goals helps to foresee where you want your business to be after a given period.
That means that your social media goals should be:
Specific – Goals should state exactly what you want to achieve.
Measurable – At the end of your social media marketing campaigns, you should be able to tell whether you’ve achieved your goals or not.
Attainable – Goals should be achievable.
Relevant – Goals that are related to your overall business goals.
Time-bound – Set goals you can achieve within a given period.
SMART goals are goals that you can achieve.
For instance, you cannot set goals to reach 1 million followers on Facebook within a short time frame.
Suited to Your Business
Of course, your social media campaigns will be different but aimed at achieving goals suitable for your business.
For instance, you could set goals to increase your reach, increase your followers, maximize your sales, or improve your ROI.
2. Decide How You Will Measure Results
It’s a waste of money and resources to spend time on social media without knowing whether you’re getting any noticeable results or not.
To run successful social media marketing campaigns, you need to decide your most relevant metrics.
Make sure your social metrics are in line with your goals.
Things such as the number of followers you attract shouldn’t bother you much.
Remember that you can always buy followers- and bought followers aren’t going to bring any results.
Your metrics should be informed by the goals you set before you launch your social media campaigns.
For instance, if you wanted to increase your reach (brand awareness), then you could use Post Reach as your metric.
You will also be able to tell whether your blog posts are getting read and by how many people across social networks.
For sales-based goals, the number of clicks you get would make your important metrics.
3. Identify Your Target Social Media Audience
Don’t be deceived to think that all people that follow your social media accounts are worthwhile.
Some followers are there for the sake of it. They might not engage with your content or even buy your products or services.
That’s why Follower Numbers are called vanity metrics.
That’s why you shouldn’t waste your money buying Instagram followers. After all, fake followers are just interested in your money and nothing else.
In fact, some are just robots and won’t do anything beyond following your accounts. You need real followers who can become your potential customers.
This way, you’re sure that when they buy your products, they will recommend your products to their networks.
To help you identify your target social media audience you should refer back to the goals you set before you started your campaigns- then identify followers who will help you achieve these goals.
A good rule of thumb is to identify social media followers who are much like your target customers.
For instance, if you’re promoting products related to the Agricultural industry, there is no need of wasting your time and energy interacting with people who are looking to buy products not related to agriculture.
4. Focus on Social Media Networks That Matter To Your Business
One mistake many businesses make is to want to create accounts on all social media networks. This makes them end up not engaging with their intended audience effectively- it’s not even possible to engage with your followers to the fullest if you have an account on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, and other social platforms- unless you have a team of social media managers.
Of importance is to focus on the social networks that matter the most to your business; or in simple terms, social media networks that your target followers hang around most of their time.
To focus on the right platforms for your business, you need to do some research.
The fact that you have identified your target social media audience in Step #3 above should make it easy for you to know the channels they use regularly.
You could also ask your target audience or conduct surveys.
You need to focus on building your social media presence around three to four social media networks. For instance, you might want to create an account on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube or and Tiktok.
You could also use valuable data gathered by Pew Research to know which social networks to focus on.
5. Identify What Content to Publish on Your Social Media Networks of Choice
Content is king and distribution is queen. And to attract a big audience on social media, you need to share content people are looking to consume. If you’re sharing your blog posts or infographics, you need to make sure they are high-quality.
Don’t be too promotional with the content you share.
Social media networks were primarily introduced to make people connect and socialize with friends, colleagues, and family members- and this is still the fact until today.
So, you need to share entertaining and educating content and chip in a few promotional messages.
You also have to engage with other businesses’ content. After all, it doesn’t cost you anything to comment on your follower’s posts or like the posts of other brands.
Ideally, when it comes to identifying content to share with your intended audience put the two points below in mind:
Be sure of the content you can publish
Deciding to create a great YouTube channel won’t be a great move if you don’t have the tools to record and create interesting and entertaining videos.
The content you share with your intended audience can make or break your trust with them- so you need to make sure you can produce the type of content you decide to create.
Do remember that your personal accounts are different from your business accounts
Whether you’re running your business’ social media accounts or you have someone managing the accounts on your behalf, the two types of accounts should be treated differently.
Don’t think that posts that are successful in your personal accounts can be successful when shared with your business social media accounts.
In short, everything you share on your social media accounts should be informed by your intended audience.
6. Have a Content Calendar and Know the Suitable Time to Post on Social Media
You might think that making posts manually on social media is saving your money but that might not bring great results.
Today, most social media channels use sophisticated algorithms to determine what content to show on people’s feeds.
So, you want to make sure you post on social media at the time when your target followers are online else your content will be nowhere to be seen by the time they log into their accounts.
A good rule of thumb is to use post scheduling.
Read this article to learn the social media posting schedule that generates great results.
7. Create Content Tailored for Each Social Media Channel
Content that performs better on Instagram might not bring great results on LinkedIn. Different channels use different algorithms and have a different set of audience altogether.
So, it’s important to tailor your content for each channel.
When creating content, you should have the following in mind:
Facebook allows users to share longer posts than Twitter. However, you need not make your posts too long.
Sharing short videos also goes well on Facebook, plus you should include catchy images alongside your posts.
Pinterest is also another platform where images can do better. You can make Pinned images on your boards to display your products. Also, remember that most of the Pinterest users are women.
Twitter has a character limitation. The social media network doesn’t allow sharing posts above the set characters- so aim to share short messages that are straightforward and include links and hashtags as well. You also want to add images alongside your posts.
LinkedIn was invented as a social network for professionals. However, it’s one of the best social media marketing channels to take your business to the next level. But you need to share content that educates and informs your target audience, especially something that helps them increase their knowledge.
Instagram was introduced as an image-sharing platform. Sharing beautiful and relevant images as well as short videos on this platform could bring you great results.
Just make sure you share interesting stories as well here to stir engagement.
8. Spy on Your Competitors’ Social Media Usage
Chances are that your competitors are also active on social media- and are running social media campaigns. They are the guys that can inspire your social media marketing.
Take a look at the content they share and note the following:
- Who they are targeting.
- The keywords they use on their posts.
- The type of content they share most of their time.
- Doing a competitor analysis could help you know your target audience better as well as the content they would enjoy interacting with when they visit your profile.
Doing a competitor analysis could help you understand the strengths and weaknesses of your competitors so you can determine how to bridge the gap.
You could even see which social networks your competitor isn’t focusing on so you can take advantage of it.
For example, your close competitor might not be active on Pinterest and you could invest your time and resources on this platform.
Buzzsumo is a good social media marketing tool for your competitor analysis.
9. Cross-Promote Your Social Networks
Social media is a good tool for word-of-mouth marketing.
Sharing high-quality content on your accounts could make people recognize your business.
However, you still need to cross-promote your channels to make more and more people notice your existence.
You could share posts on Twitter and let people know that you also have an Instagram account or other accounts so that they can also follow you there.
You could also include social media buttons of your accounts on your website (at the homepage, in the footer area, on the About page, etc.).
You could also include your social networks at the signature sections of your emails or newsletters you send to your subscribers.
10. Interact and Engage With Your Intended Audience
As stated earlier, people are usually active on social media looking to learn and have fun.
To prove that you’re not a robot, you need to engage with them.
Don’t just share your posts and think that you will get great results without engaging with your target audience.
You have to answer questions people ask and reply to comments.
You can also ask your followers questions to discover their likes and dislikes.
This is the reason we stated earlier that you should focus on the social networks that matter- social channels that your intended audience uses most of their time.
Bonus: Boost Your Reach With Paid Promotion
Most of the popular social networks allow users to boost their posts using paid ads. The good thing about their paid ads is that you can target your audience based on demographics, region, or interests. This means that your content will be made visible to your intended customers.
Final Word
So there you have it: 10 social media marketing tactics (plus one) to generate maximum results.
Which strategy are you already using out of the ones mentioned above?
Did we miss your favorite social media marketing tactic?
Share with us answers to these questions in the comment section.
