We all know we need to have our businesses active on social media where our customers spend their time. But choosing the right mix of social media can be challenging.
Maximize your impact, and make your marketing life simpler and more effective by taking advantage of what you might not know about Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.
Keeping up with social media posting is an essential part of marketing. But it’s also time consuming and tough to stay on top of. Use these 8 tidbits not everyone knows about.
Table of Contents
Recently a client reached out to me wanting to improve their customer experience. They have a well- established business but because of the type of product, it was pretty transactional. So we took a look at what they were doing and looked to ways to improve.
They had a good grip on who their client was. A cross-generational market dominated by women in a small industry niche. They knew the demand and have a good returning client base. They also have a monthly customer newsletter with an 80/20 mix of helpful information and marketing.
I came up with a couple of ways they could use technology to simplify the re-ordering process and we looked at social media. They were doing regular posting on Facebook, but I suggested expanding the type of posts. I also suggested they add Instagram to the mix.
When they wanted to know why I suggested Instagram, I shared with them what I’m going to share with you.
Facebook is more than a social media app. It is a huge corporation that owns Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Messenger. The upside is the power it gains via integration and connectivity.
Since we want to get the same message across multiple avenues, one tip is to interlink your business Facebook page to your business Instagram account. You can set it to automatically cross-post and reduce your workload.
Facebook is the marketer’s number one choice for B2C clients and LinkedIn is number two. Facebook is geared to a slightly older adult. Older millennials, gen X and boomers.
Instagram is geared to a younger crowd. Younger millennials and Gen Z dominate this space.
Since women are geared to socially network and connect getting good posts in front of them is important.
For all B2C companies, the core tenants of both Facebook and Instagram are shareable content. It needs to be entertaining and relevant.
Interestingly, Facebook research suggests that evergreen content is equally or more important than “sales”.
They recommend a 5:1 ratio of entertainment and sharing versus promotional with a call to action for maximum rating and impact.
Native posting on Facebook gets the highest algorithm. These get 1200% more shares than texts. Once you have it running on Facebook then add it to your YouTube channel.
How long should a video be? Videos from 1-3 minutes in length are the most popular and garner 80% of the marketing. That said Facebook says videos of 5-20 minutes are optimum. The key here might be the type of purpose they are intended to fill.
Marketing studies show 62% of videos are under 10 minutes.
With the hectic pace that we and our viewers live, post length is critical. If it’s educational, or technical how-to support, viewers will watch longer. Quick snippets, however, get the most shares.
To maximize your impact mix your posts. Include video, slides, photos, and texts. If you find a post that is especially popular, repost it.
Use a tool like Facebook Audience Optimization to get your message in front of a specific audience. Analyze how every optimization performs and adjust it for future use.
If you’re trying to reach B2B clients – you need to be on LinkedIn. Facebook is the number two backup to LinkedIn for B2B connections. Your marketing department has to keep in mind the number of consumers who will also be accessing Facebook to determine the type of posts that make sense.
While use may partly be dictated by what industry you’re in, approaching from both a professional and a social website makes good sense. Be where your prospects are.
To amplify your post results, use paid ads. In today’s world, you can’t get the same reach free that you used to.
Now you have to pick your post carefully and watch your budget if you decide to boost it. You also need to monitor analytics and evaluate your results based on your goal.
Each type of social media has its own guidelines for hashtag use. Hashtags can help you build your brand and create “searchability”. They help your prospects find you.
Instagram will let you add up to 30 hashtags on a post. The other formats either frown on too many hashtags, or just won’t let you insert them.
Facebook prefers one hashtag but will let you insert more. For best results, keep it to one or two maximum.
Twitter prefers short hashtags. The shorter the better if you want to include more than one and stay within character length requirements. A maximum of two to three hashtags is suggested.
LinkedIn is all about relevancy. You can include them in the body of your post/article, at the end, or in the descriptive caption of a graphic. Generally too many looks “spammy” on what is generally recognized as a professional-to-professional site.
Repeated use of the same relevant hashtags also is useful. You need to select them carefully to make sure they aren’t already overused.
It’s essential the words you choose be the words someone would enter in a search to find what you are offering. Consider combining carefully selected hashtags with an app or software that allows you to track and analyze effectiveness.
Judith Culp Pearson receives three top honors
at the annual Society of Permanent Cosmetic Professionals in
Ft. Worth, Texas - October 7-9, 2023
