Five social media tips

By Simone Sangha, Liniar.

With more individuals relying on online influencers before making purchases, social media has more power than ever before. Targeting and reaching a high volume of your demographic is the obvious benefit, alongside raising brand awareness. In this month’s column I’ll give you my top five tips for social media marketing, whether you need a refresh or are a complete novice.

Don’t rely on social alone. Social media should be incorporated into your overall customer experience funnel and marketing mix.

Don’t disregard your other marketing efforts to focus purely on social, or manage social media as a separate activity. It’s best to integrate and align social with your other channels – both online and offline.

For example, if you’re sending out emails or adding new press releases onto your website, you can increase the audience through social media, using it to drive traffic back to your website.

Measuring effectiveness is imperative for results. Evaluating the effectiveness of your campaigns is vital to measure which posts your audience is engaging with, and which they aren’t. This creates a way to tailor your content to your audience and get the most from your social accounts.

I tend to use Google Analytics but each social platform has its own form of analysis when you’re using a business account, so make sure you look at them regularly.

Each platform should be unique. I would propose developing personas for each of the platforms. For example, I would recommend a more formal, business voice for LinkedIn, images or videos on Facebook, and succinct posts with an informal voice for both Twitter and Instagram.

Constructing these personas will help when scheduling posts and gives you a better chance to both grow organic followers and connect with your audience.

The best free tools to use for social. Scheduling posts means you can spend a couple of hours each week setting up regular contact with your audience, avoiding spending all your time online.

There are so many tools you could use; some even have completely free versions, such as Hootsuite, Sprout Social and Buffer, with larger paid versions available as you grow. Look for tools with good analytics.

Building the perfect audience. I would argue that paid campaigns are the best way to promote your products and services, and social media is a great way to target an exact demographic.

With the ability to target age, location, likes and dislikes, it’s a great way to build brand awareness and create an army of fans.

Bonus Tip. Create a social media calendar to include industry-related key dates. For example, we include National Window Safety Week and National Apprentice Week. This not only helps you with ideas if you’re scheduling posts in advance but is also something you can use for years to come.