How to optimise your social media marketing

What and how often should you post on social media?

65% of UK adults use social networking sites with an ever increasing percentage of the population tweeting, sharing and liking on a daily basis.

It’s vital that business owners have an active presence on social media but how do you grab users’ attention through all the noise?

We’ve put together a simple guide that covers what and when you should post on each channel to engage your audience and build your brand.

A few starters to optimise your account

Before embarking on a content schedule, there are a few fundamentals you should apply to your social media marketing in order to get the best results from your activity.

Brand consistency

Complete all required fields on your social profiles with information about your business and upload good quality cover pictures. Use your logo as a profile photo on every channel to build brand recognition and make it easier for followers to identify you across different platforms.

Social media ‘rule of thirds’

There is a temptation for businesses to exclusively share their own content on social media in a drive to push sales. People have diverse informational needs and rely on social channels for a range of news and industry updates as well as details about your company’s products and services.

Aim for a balanced mix of content that doesn’t lean too heavily in one direction. The ‘rule of thirds’ is a system which encourages equal share of promoting, sharing and interacting with users that will help you achieve the right balance.

The rule of thirds proposes that:

• ⅓ of activity should be promoting your business to increase brand awareness and profit
• ⅓ of activity should be sharing content from other like-minded businesses or thought leaders in your field
• ⅓ of activity should be interacting with your followers by responding to comments and engaging with fans on a personal level, helping to show the human side of your brand

Include a clear call to action on every post

Posts should do more than share information; they should spark action. Featuring a call to action is essential for getting your audience to take the next step, whether it’s visiting your website, reading your blog or contacting you directly for more information.

Use every post as an opportunity to engage users: feature a web link, email address, phone number or ask people to share/like/retweet/spread the word.

Tailor content for different platforms

Cross-promoting the same posts on different channels will enable more people to see and benefit from the content. However you should tweak the updates to suit the platform and audience you’re posting to.

You can do this by creating new captions, hashtags and graphics or by making small edits to the content to vary it. This will ensure your dedicated followers who are subscribed to more than one of your social channels won’t be bombarded with identical content which will bore them and ultimately lose you followers.

So, what should you post on social media?

Facebook

Facebook is the ideal platform for videos, blogs and curated content. Videos get 135% more organic reach than images and ideally should be uploaded directly to Facebook rather than feature as YouTube links.

Use an informal, friendly tone with your posts and ask your fans questions to get them to interact with you.

Twitter

The most common reason why people use Twitter is to keep up with news so you should post industry and product trends and updates.

Like Facebook, Twitter is great for sharing blog posts and curated, high-quality and relevant content.

If you’ve created GIFs and infographics for products or blog posts, Twitter is the best platform for sharing them on.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is best for posting professional news about your company (job posts, company achievements and updates) as well as content that is relevant to the professionals in your target audience such as white papers or industry studies.

Adopt a business tone, display thought leadership and share information about what makes you the best at what you do.

When should you post on social media?

We analysed the advice of several industry experts including Hubspot, Hootsuite and Buffer about the best times to post on social media. Here is a summary of our findings:

Facebook

When is the best time to post on Facebook?

• Between 12pm and 3pm Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Friday
• Tuesdays are slightly behind other weekdays for engagement
• Saturdays have least engagement

How often should you post on Facebook?

• No more than once a day so you don’t appear spammy, and ideally between 2-5 posts per week

Twitter

When is the best time to post on Twitter?

• Traffic peaks after 11am with the best time being between 12pm - 3pm Monday to Friday
• Traffic is especially high on Wednesdays and Thursdays

How often should you post on Twitter?

• Tweets have a shorter lifespan than other social posts, so a higher daily frequency is best
• Most retweets happen within an hour after tweeting, so again frequency is key
• Scatter your posts throughout the day
• Anywhere between 3-10 tweets per day but monitor engagement levels to see what works best

LinkedIn

When is the best time to post on LinkedIn?

• As it is the professional platform, you should post during business hours Monday to Thursday
• Morning is the best time to post
• Tuesdays and Wednesdays get best engagement
• Between 5-6pm is a good time to catch people on their commute home

How often should you post on LinkedIn?

• Post no more than once a day and ideally between 2-5 posts per week

You can further optimise your social media activity by taking a look at native analytics for each platform to identify which content gets the most comments, likes and shares. Create more of the same content to broaden your message reach and generate even more engagement.

Need help with your social media marketing? Web Foundry offer a number of social media packages (PDF, 211KB) to suit every budget. Contact one of our experts today for more information.

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