Take Your Social Media From Stale To Stellar With These 7 Tips

Most of us are overwhelmed by information on a daily basis. So if you’re trying to catch the attention of your customers through a strong social media presence, you’ll have to get creative. There are legions of other businesses like yours vying for “mindshare,” too.

Fortunately, it isn’t hard to up your social media game. By taking a few key steps to keep your social media feeds interesting, you’ll find it isn’t hard to stand out from the crowd.

Pump up the visuals.

If you’re not adding photos, graphics or videos to your Tweets and Facebook posts, you’re missing out on clicks. Many readers are more attracted to images than words. Don’t worry about springing for a professional photographer. It is possible to take very good quality photos and videos on an iPhone. If you’re feeling ambitious, design a custom graphic on Canva, a free graphic design site aimed at beginners.

Declutter your web links.

It’s tempting to push the “share” button on articles you like to spread the word about them Twitter and forget about them—but that can make for clunky Tweets laden down with long URLs. Take an extra 30 seconds to shrink links you post on Bitly. You’ll be surprised at how much more receptive readers are to your messages if they don’t include visual clutter.

Make it about “You,” not “I.”

Most people’s favorite subject is themselves. When you’re writing about a topic that interests you, try to make the focus of your social media messages “You,” to pull in more readers. For instance, if you run an agency and are announcing new product offerings, you’ll do better with a Tweet like, “Does your website need a facelift? We can help you with that!” than with one that says, “We’re proud to announce that we now offer web design.”

Curate it.

Your customers have probably missed at least a few of your best blog posts during the year. Why not repurpose them into a blog post highlighting your most popular pieces of the year or most commented blogs—and share that post on social media? It’s a great way to get readers clicking around your site and to get more eyes on overlooked content.

Say it in numbers.

Chances are you have access to a great deal of data that may interest your customers. Turning it into an infographic is a great way to keep them engaged. Canva has a free infographic tool aimed at non-designers to help you turn numbers into something more digestible for your audience.

Promote other businesses.

Your customers are part of a community—whether a geographic one or one made up of people with similar interests, the same profession or some other common bond related to your business. Posting on social media about non-competitors that serve the same community can help your business in unexpected ways. We’re strong believers in the power of partnerships to help small businesses grow. Shooting a compliment your neighbors way could be more beneficial than you think!

Ask questions.

One of the best ways to engage social media followers is to seek their input. Ask them what products or services they wish you offered, for advice on a challenge you’re trying to tackle at your business, like the best place to post job listings in your town; or for insight on something that is related to your business.

Dish out instant inspiration.

When you read the news every day, look for quotes from inspiring people to share with your social media followers. Many sports stars, artists, musicians, poets, business leaders and life-saving heroes share thoughts in the traditional media that are worth quoting—and can be great conversation starters with your customers.

Pay attention to performance metrics.

There are many tools to measure your engagement levels on the social media you use. Using a weekly social media report can help you get a good grasp of your social media performance and track important KPIs. Don’t forget to review them regularly. There is no point in spending your time sharing information that, for whatever reason, is falling flat with your followers. If you’ve written a great Tweet or shared an Instagram photo that had a lot of engagement, study it to figure out why people responded to it. Is there a way to piggyback on what you did successfully, without overkill? That can be a shortcut to ideas for other viral shares—saving you lots of time in the long run.

When you find something that works, share it again.

We love digging into Buffer’s analytics to see what our best tweets were for the week. If a tweet was retweeted hundreds of times or received a boatload of clicks, it means it was a hit with our audience.  We have no problem sharing it again to take advantage of a great tweet.

So, if something works well for you on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, don’t be afraid to post it again in the future – you’ll likely get the same awesome response.