Social media has evolved significantly over the last few years and organic reach on most major platforms continues to diminish. Recently, many businesses have come to us for advice on what to do to get started or how to get more out of what they’re currently doing. In fact, getting more from social media has been one of the most common themes from our AskWDA sessions held each Tuesday on Twitter and Friday on Instagram between 3 and 4 pm. With this in mind, we thought we’d share some of our top business social media tips to help you grow your following, improve engagement, generate more referrals and drive more leads.

Don’t spread yourself too thinly

Many businesses will aim to use every social media channel they can without focussing or targeting their efforts. If you fall into this trap then you’re likely spreading yourself too thinly. Put a stop to this by analysing which channels are working and which aren’t. From there, decide which channels to spend more of your time and effort on.

Posting frequency

Frequency of posting is one of the main areas that businesses struggle with as they simply don’t have the time. However, if you want to get more out of your social media efforts then regular posting is a must or else your audience will easily forget about you. Social media should be used as a constant reminder to your potential customers that you’re there and that you’re an expert in the industry. We’d recommend posting once daily to start with or 3-4 times per week at a minimum.

Engage with your community and add value

Engagement on social media is key. We see far too many businesses that just concentrate on posting, posting, posting without engaging with their audience. Engagement can be done through various groups or by finding conversations that are happening on relevant social posts. To find these, searching for the relevant hashtags and going through the comments on related posts often works. When you find a post and an audience you’d like to interact with, leave a comment. Always be sure to add value.

Types of content

The content you post on social media is essential to your success. Posting self-promotional content all the time will frustrate your audience. You need to get the balance right of self-promotional and non-self-promotional content. The suggested amount used to be just 20% self-promotional but it depends on your business and testing what works for you. As for non-self-promotional content, this could be: quotes, did you know’s, tips, facts, articles, opinion pieces or industry news for example. This content should aim to educate and entertain your audience.

Hashtags

Hashtags are often under-utilised on social media or not utilised as effectively as they can be. Many businesses will just add hashtags they think are relevant and this isn’t the right way to go about it. Research should be done first into discovering relevant hashtags that aim to give the greatest visibility and boost your chances of additional impressions, engagement and clicks. Ideally, we’d recommend using hashtags that aren’t overly popular with millions of uses and instead look for those with tens of thousands of uses, sometimes less. Finally, branded hashtags are a must. They build loyalty and encourage user-generated content.

UGC

User-generated content can be gathered by encouraging your audience to share their stories, experiences and purchases etc. utilising branded hashtags. UGC will greatly increase your brand exposure by introducing your brand to your customer’s audience. It will also enable you to build a better social community and establish better relationships with existing clients and prospects.

Time to invest

While it’s still possible to gain traction on social media organically with the tips above, reach across most platforms continues to dwindle. You might not want to invest money into social media or don’t have the budget but if you can, we’d highly recommend doing so. Paid social media will greatly increase your reach, traffic and conversions. If budget is a minimum, the number one campaign we’d recommend creating would be a social retargeting one that brings back all of those website visitors who haven’t converted.

Hopefully, the above business social media tips will help your business to grow your following, increase engagement rates and drive more leads and sales from your chosen platforms. If you require further advice then complete our enquiry form here.

Alternatively, request your FREE digital review. One of our experts will manually look through your existing digital marketing output (including social media) and will provide advice and actionable recommendations in a PDF that’s yours to keep.