When you’re first starting out on running your own social media, you may hear a lot of buzzwords that seem like a whole lot of gobbledygook. You might hear terms like “edgerank” and “engagement” and wonder how that’s even relevant to someone who just wants to show off their business on social media.
One particular word you’ll frequently come across is “algorithms”. This is essentially the heartbeat of social media and we’re here to help you separate the noise from the real pulse of managing your social media, and how to ensure your posts will even be seen by the right audience at the right times.
Each social media platform has their own method of calculating how posts show up, and as the social media manager for your organization, following best practices are the ideal way to start expanding your reach, and gaining new fans, friends, and followers!
How do Social Media Marketing Algorithms work?
Facebook is one of the most compelling, but also one of the most difficult social media platforms to manage. This platform seems to change expectations every single week, but there are tried and true methods to ensure consistency no matter what they change.
As a whole, Facebook rewards brands who offer engagement and content that is engaged with. Your best bet is to focus on posting content that your audience wants to see, while integrating content you want them to see as well. An easy way to up your engagement levels is by offering engagement — ask questions! Over time, and with some boosts here and there, you will see your results improve.
Twitter is complicated for the uninitiated. Their algorithm favors tweets relevant to the individual user. This means that when they login, they will mostly tend to see tweets from people they interact with the most.
The best things to do on Twitter is to research relevant hashtags and interact with people! After all, if you’re interacting with others, you’ll appear in their feeds far more frequently. Tweeting about relevant topics is another way to inspire conversation, with people who find the topics you’re discussing to be relevant.
After much uproar, Instagram changed their algorithm back to a time-based feed. They had temporarily changed this, and immediately found that users wanted to see things in their feed as they happened — not days after the fact. Even if it was relevant to them!
Instagram favors quality and engagement. High quality photos and infographics take priority over lower resolution photos. It also helps to ask questions or speak on a topic that will encourage users to comment. The faster, the better, and many folks find that their social media management apps can track and create the most opportune times to post to maximize exposure.
Hashtags increase your reach as well, so never neglect them!
Evergreen Social Media Tips:
Monitor your analytics
Any social media management software worth its salt will have the ability to help monitor your activity. Use these stats to gauge whether or not your audience is responding to your posts. Each platform has their own set of analytics, as well, but it doesn’t hurt to have another set of eyes on your performance!
Ask Questions
Asking a simple question can inspire a lot of additional conversations! For instance, if you’re a restaurant, post a quality photo of one of your dishes with an accompanying question. It doesn’t even have to be related to the dish, per se. Even tangentially related question will suffice, as long as it’s open ended.
Bonus tip: Even asking people to “like” a post, or click a link is another simple way to increase engagement on any platform.
Tag users
This is especially relevant on Instagram, but works very well for Twitter as well. You can tag multiple people in your post to not only expand your reach and potential for impressions, but this also encourages other accounts to interact with your content!
If it all sounds like a whole lot of work — we get it. Sometimes you don’t have time for this kind of work. That being said, if this all sounds like a whole lot of work we’re happy to help take the reigns and turn your social media program into something you’d be proud to show off.
Our Social Media Management team at Silicon Beach Web is armed and ready to take your social media campaigns to the stars!
Also, check out this article: 48 TIPS FOR BECOMING A TWITTER PRO