Now that you are familiar with the best universal practices for all your social media platforms, it’s time to go from a general approach to a more specific one.
It’s time to find out the most important practices that will help you dominate every social network you add to your arsenal.
Let’s start by discussing how you can elevate your Facebook page performance!
Social media best practices for Facebook
What better way to start this section of the article than with the biggest social media platform in the world, Facebook.
1. Post video content
On Facebook, video content is king. In fact, videos register the highest organic engagement out of all the other Facebook post formats.
Here are some video tips according to Facebook:
- Post clips directly to the platform (this will help you get your videos to appear on more feeds)
- Make authentic content
- Respect intellectual property by not sharing copyrighted content
- Share actual videos, not slideshows or short looped clips
- Optimize your videos for mobile devices
- Don’t use bait to boost your results artificially; foster meaningful engagement
- Use an engaging thumbnail
Old Spice is the master of video marketing. Almost all of their Facebook content is made up of short-form video ads.
2. Use Facebook Shop
Fun fact: 54% of social media users research products on social networks.
So, why not go the extra step and bring your products closer to your customers by opening your Facebook Shop? As a result, you will eliminate some of the friction that intervenes between your customers and your products and make it easier for them to purchase from you.
To open a shop, you only need a Facebook Business page and go through the simple steps of opening a shop.
Once you open your shop, you can:
- Add an unlimited number of products
- Organize your products in different categories
- Have access to analytics about your sales and visits
- Promote your products on Facebook Marketplace
Additionally, you can also tag your products in your Facebook posts and give your customers easy access to your products.
By clicking on the tag, your audience gets to find out more details about your products, and they can even make a purchase.
3. Post lead magnets
Do you want to generate leads from your Facebook business account?
Then, we have the right suggestion for you: lead magnets.
Offer value to the Facebook users who follow you through your quality content and bring them closer to your business. Lead magnets can be anything from free ebooks, guides, vouchers, or a free consultation that your audience can benefit from by entering their contact information.
By gathering this type of data, you get to expand your customer base and send marketing messages directly to your audience. In this way, you make sure your messages don’t get lost on social media by contacting your potential customers directly.
Facebook groups are a great channel for lead magnets, especially when they are created with your industry in mind. You can even create a Facebook group of your own to build a loyal and engaged community around your brand.
Social media best practices for Instagram
Don’t be fooled by Instagram’s youthful and visually appealing qualities. This is one of the social media apps that knows best how to do business.
Here are three social media tips to set you on the right track to success.
1. Use hashtags
There is no secret that hashtags are a big part of the way Instagram organizes its content. Moreover, it’s also a tool that people use to search for the content they want.
For instance, if an Instagram user often looks through posts with food-related hashtags, the platform will start recommending posts with similar hashtags to provide useful content and keep them on the app for as long as possible.
When used the right way, hashtags can help you reach more of your target audience and increase brand awareness. Keep in mind that this doesn’t apply to Instagram Stories.
To use Instagram effectively, you have to:
- Use between three to five relevant hashtags
- Mix popular and niche hashtags
- Change your hashtags for each post to avoid repetitive content
2. Work with influencers
If you are looking to reach a larger audience and boost your sales in a short time frame, we have some good news.
Instagram is the perfect place to get in touch with niche influencers that match your brand image.
Starting a collaboration with a social media influencer has many benefits:
- Exposes brands to thousands of potential customers
- Builds credibility and trust
- Drives customer purchase decisions
To find the right influencer partnerships for your brand, you can start looking through industry hashtags to find their posts.
Once you find a couple of relevant accounts, you can click the arrow next to the follow button, and Instagram will suggest dozens of other similar influencers.
Another great way to get in touch with online personalities for sponsored influencer content is to subscribe to an influencer marketing platform.
3. Add product tags to your Posts
One of the best ways to monetize your Instagram posts is to add product tags to your posts.
By doing so, you manage to remove time-consuming steps that may inconvenience some of your potential customers.
When the buying process is fast and easy to complete, you encourage your customers to buy on the spot because they get to act on their impulses. Before they get to question their buying behavior, the order is already placed.
Social media best practices for X (formerly Twitter)
Let’s get right into our social media tips for X, shall we?
1. Avoid using too many hashtags
Even though X is the platform that changed the way we use hashtags, the recommended amount you should use in a tweet is no more than two hashtags.
Why? Because an X post can have only 280 characters. Imagine adding 10 hashtags in such a short format. You will end up creating a post full of blue words that overpower your message and make your post feel spammy.
2. Add images for more engagement
Adding visual elements to a tweet is the perfect recipe for engagement.
Tweets with images proved to generate 150% more retweets than those without. And images are not the only stars of the show; X (formerly Twitter) revealed that videos generate ten times more engagement than simple tweets.
So, don’t shy away from posting branded visuals that emphasize your message.
To make the most out of your images, you can even use them as a way of adding more information to a short tweet.
Moreover, GIFs are great visuals that can spice up your posts and sprinkle some humor into your content strategy. Play around with different media types to ensure you’re sharing compelling content.
3. Tag other X accounts
X is a very conversational platform, and users tend to love to speak their minds, debate, and share their opinions freely.
You can take advantage of this quality and use it to your advantage by tagging other relevant brand accounts from your industry and starting conversations.
Most likely, you will get tagged back when you receive a reply, and this will help you gain more exposure on the platform and new followers from their audience.
Besides, you don’t always have to start a debate to tag another account. You can simply use tags to give credit or make recommendations.
No matter the type of interactions you have, make sure you maintain a consistent brand voice in your social media communications. Posts, replies, and even direct messages should reflect your company’s values and image.
Social media best practices for LinkedIn
If you are looking to build authority within your niche and network with valuable professionals, Linkedin is the best option for you.
Let’s see how you can optimize your LinkedIn performance with three simple practices.
1. Share industry-specific social media posts
LinkedIn is the perfect place for industry leaders to share their industry knowledge, as well as highlight their company culture.
This social media landscape is full of people who want to learn new information that will help them develop professionally. So, this is your chance to build authority within your niche and gain a loyal following that looks forward to your advice and valuable insights.
Go ahead and post your blog articles (this is a great way to drive traffic to your website as well), detailed tips and tricks, and downloadable resources that will generate lots of leads. You can even turn a lengthy blog post into an insightful LinkedIn post and repurpose your existing content.
To make things even better, you can directly ask your audience what they would like to learn from you. Then use that information and encourage user participation by making Q&A videos and creating better content that will drastically boost your reach and engagement.
You don’t always have to create long-format content to make industry-specific posts. You can also share articles, news, and studies from reputable sources, highlight important findings and industry trends, and share them with your LinkedIn audience. The important thing is that you always tailor content for your followers.
2. Update your LinkedIn profile
When it comes to building a professional profile on LinkedIn, simple things matter, such as:
- Filling in all the fields with relevant information
- Making your brand name your username, so people will find you more easily
- Setting branded visuals as your profile and background images to showcase your brand identity
- Adding a clear description of your business
- Making sure your profile is public
This way, you don’t just make sure your brand exists on the platform and is discoverable, but also that it showcases your experience and results, as well as business and personal values that people can relate to.
Constantly update all this data so it’s always relevant. It would look unprofessional if your business went through a rebranding, for example, but your profile and cover images still have the old logo.
3. Send weekly connection requests
The best thing about LinkedIn is that you don’t have to wait around for people to follow you.
Many entrepreneurs and businesses take matters into their own hands and invest time in sending weekly connection requests to maintain a consistent audience growth.
Furthermore, LinkedIn has an amazing feature that allows social media users to sync their email address book with their profile and receive valuable connection suggestions. In this way, you connect with the right people who are part of your target audience
Social media best practices for Pinterest
Are you using Pinterest in your own strategy? Then you should be aware of the following best practices.
1. Focus on inspiring your audience
If you could merge Instagram with a motivational speaker, you would get Pinterest, an inspirational visual search engine that helps you envision your dreams and objectives.
The great thing about Pinterest is that you can market your products and services without being too salesy. In fact, this type of content wouldn’t even work on the platform.
Rather than speaking about your products or services, try to focus more on the goals that motivate your audience.
For example, a gym owner could promote their services by making content about a healthy lifestyle and sharing motivational quotes and a few examples of results from current customers that would motivate others to start their fitness journey.
2. Use keywords in your titles and descriptions
Give your customers a helping hand and make it easier for them to find your content.
Don’t forget that at the end of the day, Pinterest is a search engine. So, to optimize your content, you have to add relevant keywords in your titles, descriptions, and boards.
Start by entering industry terms in the search bar and use the autocomplete feature to identify the most popular keyphrases.
But, don’t rely only on popular terms, mix them with more descriptive long-tail keywords that will bring you closer to your niche target audience.
3. Create themed boards
Besides being a visual platform, Pinterest is designed to help people get inspired, save ideas, and organize them using boards.
For example, people use Pinterest to discover decorating tips, new recipes, hairstyles, outfits, and quotes, and they save them by creating their own collections (boards).
So in order to create valuable content, you have to:
- Think about the main things your customers would search for related to your products.
- Create specific boards that answer their needs.
- Name them using popular keywords they would use to make a search.
Let’s say you own a nail salon. A great way to promote your services would be to make visually appealing photos of your work and post them on Pinterest. To organize your visuals, you can create boards named “nail inspiration”, “nail design ideas”, etc.
Now, the next time potential customers search for nail ideas, they will see your work.
Chances are, if they like your designs, they will go straight to you to get the desired result instead of getting someone else to do it and risk not getting exactly what they wanted.
Social media best practices for Google Business Profile
There is business in the title; that’s how you know our next platform is as important as it gets.
Let’s see how you can dominate local search rankings with Google Business Profile.
1. Manage all your reviews
Did you know that nine out of ten customers check reviews before making a purchase?
So, no matter what type of business you run, your customers will take into consideration your reviews. Not just your rating, but also the way you handled each situation.
The truth is that you will always have some unhappy clients in your reviews section. So take these opportunities to provide a great experience and social media customer service every time.
The best advice we can give you is to respond to customer inquiries and reviews and escalate any negative customer feedback with kindness and a willingness to help.
Also, remember to encourage your clients to review your business every chance you get because positive reviews significantly improve your ranking on local Google searches.
2. Keep it short & business-oriented
If you want to see results through your Google Business Profile content, you have to be all about the business side of things.
Save your motivational quotes for Pinterest because on Google Business Profile, now it’s time to use your best promotional material.
When people search your business on Google, they already have serious intentions. They don’t want to see entertaining content. They would rather learn about your products and services or find a voucher code in one of your posts.
So, to encourage your audience to act, feel free to post about your promotions, your newest launches, events, and other surprises you might have in store.
3. Share key information
Your Google Business Profile needs to contain complete and accurate information.
All the fields you find on your Google Business Profile account are there for a reason. Providing your potential customers with all the data they need to make a purchase is very important.
When you allow your audience to be unsure of what you offer, you leave room for them to continue their research process and move on to another business.
Let’s say you own a cafe. Maybe a customer is looking for a pet-friendly place where they can enjoy their coffee. However, you didn’t add attributes to your profile, and there is no mention anywhere that you allow pets in your cafe.
Most likely, your potential customers won’t bother to call and check with you. They will skip your profile and choose a cafe that clearly states that they are pet-friendly.
So, to avoid redirecting your customers to your competitors, fill in your entire profile with useful information and update it whenever needed.
Social media best practices for TikTok
What sound does the clock make? Well, it rhymes with the last platform on our list, TikTok.
If you want to go viral on social media, this great social network is your best chance. So, stay tuned to discover the practices that will bring you internet fame.
1. Post short interactive videos
TikTok’s algorithm values audience engagement more than anything else.
On TikTok, engagement means more than likes, comments, and shares. The time users spent watching your videos and the number of times they rewatched them are important factors that let the algorithm know your content is valuable.
Short and straight-to-the-point videos gain much more traction than longer ones because they don’t require much time and attention from the viewer.
Oftentimes, short videos get watched multiple times, or at least entirely. As a result, TikTok will show your videos to even more users and help you reach your target audience.
And to improve your TikTok engagement, make your video more interactive. Urge your audience to leave their opinions in the comments or ask them a question. This will give them a reason to comment and boost your video even more.
2. Use popular sounds and hashtags
Hashtags are a big part of the TikTok experience. They are used to categorize posts and help users navigate the platform easier.
Hashtags improve reach and boost the visibility of your posts. When a user watches multiple videos with similar hashtags, TikTok will then recommend more videos that use them.
Keep your hashtags more niche to make sure you find your way to the right audience. Two or three hashtags are enough to help improve your content performance.
But hashtags are not the only tools you have to reach more people; sounds also have the same effect.
More often than not, trending challenges are accompanied by specific sounds and hashtags. Put them all together, and you have the recipe for TikTok success.
And don’t worry, you don’t have to spend hours searching for the most popular sounds. You can easily find them by going to the “Discover” page or by clicking the “Add sound” button when making a video.
3. Participate in the latest trends and challenges
Every week, there is a new challenge on TikTok that everyone obsesses about.
This is great news because it means that you have endless opportunities to take advantage of their popularity and enhance your social media efforts.
Keep in mind that to do it the right way, you have to understand TikTok culture.
Take time to download the app and spend some time studying viral trends and content types. Once you have a good understanding, video ideas with emerging trends will come naturally.
If you want to see a brand that fully understands TikTok culture, check out Ryanair’s videos.
The best part about TikTok is that you don’t have to brainstorm content ideas. With so many trends and challenges, you have all the ideas you need.
