5 Effective Social Media Best Practices for Your Business

Today, an average person spends a minimum of three hours each day on social media sites. If your small business doesn’t know how to create a Facebook page for your new business, or where to begin when it comes to Pinterest, start by figuring out those tasks. Once you have your presence established on the right social media sites for your small business, focus on the importance of maximizing your company’s social media marketing campaigns.

A marketing plan with social media best practices that are proven to work is a good way to increase your brand exposure and get your products and services in the limelight.  It doesn’t need to be tricky– your business just needs to follow these five best practices to help you establish an effective strategy on social media.

Social Media Best Practices

Set Measurable Goals for Each Social Media Network

First, define the ways you want to utilize social media to be a part of your journey as you grow your business.  It’s essential to establish objectives that are measurable so you can prioritize the strategies that work and make sure not to stick with those that aren’t paying off.

Your social media strategy should include much more than collecting shares, pins, likes, and re-tweets. You should concentrate on ensuring that each social media update and post supports a goal. Some common goals are striving to develop brand awareness, acquire new customers, strengthen your customer service, and increase engagement.

Check Out the Competition

If you really want to see what is happening within your industry, look around at how competitors manage their brands on social media channels. See what content they post that generates the most interaction.

Make it a priority to always take good care of your customers – this is one way to differentiate yourself, in addition to offering excellent products and value for the almighty dollar.  You should always find ways to deliver value for your e-consumers according to a blog post by Red Stag Fulfillment. Think about the design trends that can help with customer acquisition, too. It’s important to think about how your website looks on the small screen, since many of your customers use their phones to view your website. If your website isn’t easy to navigate via the phone, you could lose customers to your competition.

Choose the Best Social Media Platforms for Your Business

It isn’t a secret that a strong social media presence can take up a lot your time. Attempting to manage various networks can actually hinder your attempts and negatively impact those channels that deliver the best results.

Take what you learn from your target customers and the way they behave online, and use that to clarify which social networks are the best fit for your business and its products and services. If you narrow down your social media networks, you will free up time to generate better content.

Brand Each of Your Social Media Pages

The identity of your company should ideally be uniform on all channels – you’re working to build up your brand and create loyalty.  Make sure consumers recognize your brand by staying consistent in imagery, your company description, your logo and tagline, and the tone and voice of the words you select to communicate.

Prioritize Quality Over Quantity

If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it one hundred times: More isn’t necessarily better when it comes to content.  Produce high quality content to share on social media – the kind of content that provides value to your customers. If you run out of ideas, search for some brainstorming tips for entrepreneurs.  A good mix is equal parts engagement, thought leadership, and promotional. Make sure your pages are current and you have both timely and relevant posts.

Most of all, remember that it takes a while for your business to grow a loyal following, so work to gain trust and nurture your relationships. It pays off to create a strategy and make it a point to target the right customers. These best practices, in combination with consistency, can help your business experience great social media success.

What social media best practices have worked well for your business?

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