26 August 2015 – For many companies social media is at the forefront of their current plans, but using social media for business can be tricky. So says Gavin Coetzee, digital researcher for amaSocial.
With this in mind we’ve compiled a 10 point checklist that should help any business craft the perfect social media post.
Length
As we all know, Twitter imposes a limit on all tweets. While you could argue that this limits functionality, part of Twitter’s appeal is infinity consumable 140 character posts. With this in mind, it’s important to take that character limit into account when creating posts. Make sure you craft the most compelling 140 character version of your statement. And if you’re hoping for retweets or planning to include links, ensure you leave an additional 20 characters for these potential inclusions.
For Facebook and LinkedIn posts, which impose no such limits, we’d suggest limiting yourself to no more than 250 words. After this point, your likely see a sharp drop off in completed readership as community members lose interest in your content.
Tracking your links
If you don’t track your links, how can you be sure they are contributing to your online offerings? Many social media platforms have a form of built in link tracking, and at the very least you should be using and monitoring these results.
For businesses with defined goals and endpoints, you should take tracking one step further and set up you own tracking campaigns. Fortunately Google Analytics has a solution for your needs. The
Google URL Builder allows you to set up specific campaigns for your links. This data is then feed back into your Google Analytics account when your links are used, allowing you far greater insights into specific link performance.
The use of hashtags
Hashtags are a great resource for quickly expanding your potential audience, making your content searchable and connecting communities and concepts. However they can be tricky to implement correctly.
Pick a generic a term for your hashtag and they provide little value. Pick an obscure term and you have the same problem. Forget to capitalise and suddenly your campaign slogan takes on a whole new unwanted meaning. When selecting a hashtag, your first step should always be looking up its current use -
Advance Search on Twitter is great for this.
Next you should review how much traction that hashtag gets on average, as well as if it will contribute favourably to your efforts. A hashtag that has a lot of traction but little focus on your core business or goals is unlikely to provide much value. A hashtag with a badly thought-out name can cause even bigger issues.
Language, form and style
Are your brand communications standardised? When initially planning your social strategy, it's important you define a consistent brand voice. By standardising these factors you can ensure your brand maintains its “voice” even if staff move. More importantly, this allows you to communicate to your community in a consistent manner that both appeals to and remains recognisable as yours.
Promoting your posts
Social post promotion is the next step in the content marketing game. With all the changes occurring in how your content is displayed, and the break neck pace at which social feeds are updated, it is often hard to get your next great piece of content to surface. This is where promoting your post can come in handy.
A promoted post can ensure not only that your whole community has a chance to potentially see your promoted content, but additional members outside your community that fit your targeting criteria. Promoted posts on the whole enjoy far higher levels of success and interaction.
Timeless content
When creating content, it’s important to
ask if that content will still be relevant in the near future. While time sensitive content is not necessarily a problem for news and entertainment publishers, for your average business you want to create content that continues to pull in views long after it's originally created. The longer your content remains relevant, the more time it has to contribute favourably to your business online.
Timing of posts
For Facebook,
the best time to post is between 13:00 and 16:00 with 13:00 as the peak sharing time. Posts placed at 15:00 have the highest click through rate. For Twitter, the optimal time to tweet would be between 13:00 and 15:00. 17:00 is the peak retweet time while 18:00 has the highest click through rate. On LinkedIn, it is a good time to post between 07:00 to 08:00 as well between 17:00 and 18:00. The highest click through rate and shares occurs on Tuesdays between 10:00 and 11:00.
When it comes to the best days to post, Thursday and Friday are the peak activity days for Facebook. While 86% of posts are published during the week, engagement peaks on these two days. Meanwhile, engagement rates fall 3.5% below average on Facebook between Monday and Wednesday.
On Twitter, weekday posts provide 14% more engagement than those on weekends for business to business (B2B). For business to consumer (B2C), your engagement and click through rates are highest on Wednesdays and weekends.
Tuesdays, Wednesdays and Thursdays are the best days to post on LinkedIn with the best times during business hours. 93% of B2B marketers rate LinkedIn as the top B2B social media lead generation source.
Original content
If you’re not generating your own content, how much value are you really providing your community? By becoming an expert resource in your business area, you not only provide your community with valuable engaging content, but potentially improve the overall perception and performance of your business within the market.
Targeting your ideal market
The biggest error you can make with social is thinking it’s all a numbers game. Never before has business had the ability to target prospects on such specific sets of criteria. If targeted correctly you can find and grow a community of truly committed individuals with a real expressed interest in your efforts.
Rich content
As social media has grown, so have communities
demand for quality content. As such, simple rich content can see far higher levels of performance on social media. The use of images on Facebook posts sees 53% more likes and 104% more comments, while tweets with images result in a 36% increase in the CTR, a 41% increase in retweets and a 48% increase in favourites. This clearly illustrates how communities demand for rich content can be leveraged into better performance levels when used correctly.
For more information on amaSocial, visit
amasocial.co.za. Alternatively, connect with them on
Facebook or on
Twitter.