10 Tips to Perfect Your Social Media Posts

It's becoming harder and harder to make the voice of your business heard across social media, not because your message is any less valuable but due to the sheer surge in popularity of platforms like Facebook and Twitter. Combined with the noise and shift of such platforms to drive more paid posts, promotions and ads, organic reach - the kind you get from simply posting something to your page and waiting for your fans to see it - has inevitably dropped. Now that users have more to filter, they equally have a lower tolerance for doing that and the social networks know it. [caption id="attachment_1259" align="alignright" width="318"]Increasing the reach of posts is a common goal for small business marketers, but it's getting harder.[/caption] That being said, no social network worth its salt can ignore or demote business content that adds value to its users. Providing your business can consistently post valuable or entertaining updates, engagement and unpaid reach should still remain high. The key is understanding what makes a post great and that's where today's ten tips come in. 

Take Steps to Perfect Your Posts

There are many factors that combine to make for a popular post. Depending on your business culture and the type of audience you're trying to attract, some factors will be more valuable than others. Even so, it still makes sense to understand all of the potential plays you can make. Experimenting with your social media marketing posts helps you to see what your audience responds to and what puts them off your page. Over time this means you can craft just the right mix to perfect your posts.

Improve Your Facebook Posts

• Your approach will also vary by platform. On Facebook, the following factors play well:1. Light-hearted content geared towards entertainment value.
• 2. Strong visuals attract more attention. Memes can work well but need to be relevant, not just jumping on the bandwagon.
• 3. Topical posts that relate what you do to current events or seasonality.
• 4. Special offers, contests, or anything that casts your product/service in the light of saving page fans time and money.

Improve Your Twitter Posts

• On Twitter, things are a little different (although the site seems to look more like Facebook every day). Think about these elements to craft the perfect Twitter post:5. Brief, to the point posts make most sense and attract more attention. Cluttering up your 140 characters is a sure fire way to have people ignore you.
• 6. Tantalizing headlines should be used when you want to drive clicks to your site. Think like a newspaper editor!
• 7. Hashtags make your message more visible but should be used sparingly. One or two per tweet is enough.
• 8. Quotes and one-liners can work well.
• 9. Images can help to increase engagement but should be used in their own right (where the image is the point of the post, not an addition).
• 10. Repetition is okay. Tweets are a drop in the ocean and easy to miss, so it's worth posting the same piece again a few hours later to help followers catch it. Varying the content of your tweet will help to make your feed more interesting, however, even when you're communicating the same link or idea.

[caption id="attachment_3080" align="aligncenter" width="640"] Social media and telecoms marketing make for a powerful partnership. | Image Credit: Jason Howie[/caption] On both social networks, the timing of your posts is also vital. Knowing when fans will be around to view your content helps more people to catch it early on, driving the likes and shares that increase your reach. Again, you can test out posting at different times to see what works best for your business page. Another quality that works well on both platforms is supporting a cause. If something you post, be it an offer or just a link to an article, supports a non-profit or some other selfless effort, fans will see that your page is about more than just selling them something. Factor in as many of these ideas as you can for your posts across these two prominent platforms to ensure that you keep your social media fans and followers coming back for more. Once you hone your social media strategy, you can integrate other marketing tools to make your brand more memorable online. Read our posts about integrating a vanity number on Facebook or Pinterest, for example.