Today, if you are in business, you know how important having a successful social media strategy is to getting your message and information about your brand out to your targeted market. So if you already have a social media strategy that is working for you, you are already a step ahead of the game; however, do not make the mistake of thinking that it can be ignored and left to its own devices. Social media is constantly changing, what may have worked for you last year, last month or even last week. Therefore, tweeking your strategy should be considered an ongoing process that needs to be customized for each social network you utilize.
Are You Making This Mistake?
Ok, so it is time to make a status update. If you are like many other marketers, you may have developed a quick and easy three-step strategy that involves:
- Creating your update
- Selecting your networks, such as Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn
- Auto-publishing your update to your networks
Now you may now be asking, “Yeah what is wrong with that strategy…it seems to be working for me so far.” Well yes, it may be working, but it also may not be fully utilizing the power of your networks. One of the most important things you should be paying attention to is the best practices for ensuring the success of your message for each individual network. And yes, that does mean a little more work on your part, but that work will pay off.
Customize Your Strategy for Each of Your Networks
Consider these best practices for these three networks that will help you achieve the maximum audience and success for your marketing strategy:
- Facebook
- Keep your link titles under 100 characters to avoid truncating your title on your business page
- Use high-quality photos, visuals, different punctuation and emoticons to attract attention
- Increase the word count of your posts to increase interest
- Publish your post on weekends or after work hours for maximum exposure
- LinkedIn
- Keep your link titles limited to 70 characters or less and your meta descriptions to under 250 characters
- Publish a new update daily and send an announcement to those in your group
- More effective than Facebook and Twitter for generating leads, up to 277% more in some cases
- Share, share and share! links, videos, images and engage your audience by asking for comments
- Twitter
- Keep your message short, between 120-130, but not just because of your character limit…it makes it easier for your reader to retweet and add their handle without having to delete characters
- Most tweets occur during the work day, but tweets are more often retweeted at night or on the weekend
- Use hashtags, but don’t force trending ones if not relevant to your message
- Sharing photos can increase your leads by up to 55%
