Social media is an essential tool for promoting any business. It can help you reach current and prospective customers, increase awareness about your brand, and boost your sales and revenue. But with so many businesses on social media platforms, it can be difficult to stand out. In this blog post, we will share simple tricks that you can use to reach your target customers and build a solid presence and following on social media.
1. Use social media management solutions
It’s important to regularly connect with your audience on social media. However, this doesn’t mean that you should spend the majority of your day posting content.
Instead, use social media management tools like HubSpot, Hootsuite, and Buffer. With these tools, you can:
- Plan and schedule content publication
- Analyze the performance of your posts
- Distribute tasks among your social media team
2. Include hashtags in your posts
Hashtags are words or phrases preceded by the hash sign (#) used to identify a specific topic or marketing campaign on Instagram and Twitter. For instance, a hashtag like #Oscars on a social media post indicates that its content is related to the Academy Awards ceremony. That post will be shown together with others that also have that particular hashtag. This means that people looking into a much-talked-about topic can search for a related hashtag and join the online conversation.
If used correctly, hashtags can effectively boost your visibility and engagement on social media. Here are some best practices you can try:
- Use 20–30 hashtags per post. According to social media management tool Later, posts with these many hashtags will give you the best reach and engagement rates.
- Include hashtags that are relevant to your organization and industry. Doing so increases the likelihood that your audience will see your posts.
- Encourage your audience to use your own hashtag. This makes it easy for you to see whenever they post about your brand.
- Put your hashtags in your post’s first comment. This will make your post’s caption easier to read.
- Make your hashtags easy to spell and remember. Typographical errors will make it difficult for your audience to find your posts.
- Check trending hashtags and capitalize on those by using them in your posts. Also, see what hashtags people are using when talking about your brand and include them in your own tweets.
- Give people a reason to use your hashtag. Whether it’s an actual prize or just an acknowledgement, your audience will respond better when there’s added value to using your hashtag.
- Partner with influencers or your followers to help boost your hashtag’s visibility and engagement.
If used correctly, hashtags can effectively boost your visibility and engagement on social media.
3. Use Stories
Stories is a feature on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and TikTok that allows you to share photos, videos, and status updates that disappear after 24 hours. It is a great way to promote your business, stay connected with your audience, and gather feedback.
Here are some ideas on what you can share on a story:
- Your products or services in action: Show your potential customers what they can expect when they do business with you.
- Behind-the-scenes look at your business: Your audience will appreciate getting a peek into the work that goes into making your products or delivering your services.
- Customer testimonials: This is a great way to show your audience that your products or services are effective and reliable.
It’s ideal to post a story on your social media accounts at least once per day. Do not post too many stories in one day as this can overwhelm your audience and cause them to unfollow you.
4. Start a conversation
You need to focus on engagement instead of vanity metrics such as likes and followers. Therefore, it’s important to use your content to initiate conversations. To do this, you can ask questions, run polls, or offer giveaways on your social media accounts. By encouraging your audience to share their ideas and opinions, you’ll be able to create a more engaged and loyal following.
5. Promote your blogs on social media
If you want to drive traffic to your website, you need to promote your blog posts on social media. Here are some best practices to guide you:
- Include a catchy headline and a brief description of what the article is about.
- Use hashtags to reach a bigger audience.
- Include a call to action to encourage your audience to read the article.
- Create visuals like infographics and hyperlink these to your blog posts. Eye-catching social media visuals are not only more click-worthy, but they're more shareable, too.
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