9 Proven Social Media Success Tactics

While social media has been called the holy grail of marketing, not every business achieves the same amount of success on these platforms. Almost every business has a Facebook page, Twitter account, YouTube videos, Instagram, Snapchat, but still struggling to increase its reach into the target markets.

They are under the illusion that social media will make them a star. They also realize that there is an equal probability of failing to get noticed at all.

You need a social media plan and the patience to implement that plan. When you execute a social media plan correctly, it will generate increased brand awareness and form a network of communication with your customers.

The purpose of this article is to provide you with tips to be successful on Social Media. But what I really want is to get you to look at your approach in a new way.

Think about your strategy to Social Media this way. You were just invited to a big party where you don’t know anyone, and they don’t know you. Are you going to walk around saying, :”Hi. My name is Phil, and I have this business. Here is a 50% off coupon to try it.”

Or, would you walk around engaging with people and starting conversations about topics you can all relate to. Then you would weave in discussions of your business.

Do you see the difference? That is how social can be effective.

1. Create a Social Media Channel Plan

Every successful marketing campaign requires planning. Many brands select all the channels of social media and blast the same message out to all of them. This is a bad strategy. All social media sites have their own particular audience. If you are sharing the same content, it would have an adverse impact and make your brand appear dull.

2. Learn from Past Posts

After every post, you should review your metrics and insights. You are looking for engagement results. This will give you with a direction into what engages your followers.

We have a client in the specialty loose leaf tea channel. For years they posted nice images of tea with links back to their site. They posted weekly coupons and deals. But they got no traction. No engagement. In fact, they weren’t even looking at the results of their posts.

Once we got involved, we explained two points to them. First, people want to understand the benefits of a product. What does the product do to enhance their lives? And second, people want content that is interesting to them. If they are going to take the time to read something, it should be worth it.

3. Deliver Great Content Consistently

Social media is not something you add to your marketing when you have time. To be great at social, it requires a plan and a calendar.

Let’s go back to the tea company. Once we changed the strategy, we also developed a calendar with specific times to post. On Facebook, we would post four times a day. The first post would be at 8 am with an inspirational quote related to tea or health and a great image. The next post, at 11 a would be reposted content about tea benefits and health. 2 pm would be a humorous post and the last, at 6 pm would be original content about tea. Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram had their own calendars with a similar strategy.

These were the primary social channels that applied to this business. Others, like LinkedIn or Snapchat, didn’t really work for this brand.

The results were immediate and impressive. Not only did they pick up new followers, but the engagement rate went through the roof, with visits to the website picking up as well.

Make sure your content is consistent with your brand’s story and aligns well with your customer personas.

4. Mix Up Your Content

Consistency in the brand image is important. However, you don’t want your followers to get bored. So mix up how you are posting. For example, if you share blogs then experiment with different blog formats.

Alternate your content between images, blogs, and videos. You can also deliver the same information in various ways like infographics, and podcasts.

A healthy mix of a variety of content formats depicts professionalism and creativity.

5. Dedicate The Time and Budget

The brands with the most success on social media have a person or persons dedicated to the administration. This is part of your overall marketing plan. Make sure you are dedicating the resources and budget to make the most of this channel.

Some of our smaller clients have the person creating their content, handling email and social. Which is smart approach because then the voice and tone of the content are the same.

6. Create Action-Oriented Content

Direct sales don’t work well on the social channel. So you have to be smart about creating content that makes the user want to know more about you.

If you are writing content that focuses on solutions, then let the user know there is more on your site and provide a link to that. Once you start getting them to your site, you have a better chance of converting them. Find a way to get their email address by giving away something free. A free sample, free content, anything of value. Once they have provided their email address, you can add them to your newsletters and sales.

7. Mixing Paid Advertisement

Every once in a while you have to run ads. That is ok. Just follow the same brand messaging and feel. And make it seem special. Don’t go from promoting benefits to an infomercial look overnight. You will lose your audience.

8. Respond in Real-Time

Social media opens the gateway to a two-way communication. Apart from you sharing your content and information, the users also have the opportunity to write reviews, give comments or even customer service issues.

Users looking for help and issue resolution need quick responses. This will positively influence your brand.

9. Monitoring & Measurement

Monitoring the results of your efforts should be ongoing. It is only going to help you to improve. This is going to give you more insights into your customer and what they are engaging with. This is going to allow you to refine your customer persona.

Using these hints will help you be more successful. But if I could only change one thing, I would change your view of the social channel. Mastering this channel will make you a much better overall marketer.