Five Tips to Optimize Social Media Marketing to Increase Success for your Business

In a world where everyone would love to be an overnight success story, it’s easy to forget that it takes a significant amount of time and effort to become successful. The same goes for social media. Just because your organization is active on every social platform doesn’t mean that every social media channel is being fully optimized to your advantage. Having 100,000 followers on your page doesn’t guarantee success if your audience isn’t engaging with your content. And, if you haven’t incorporated a social media marketing strategy that aligns with your overall business plan, your company could be missing out on significant opportunities.

Here are five tips to help your organization become socially savvy and get results.

Is there a strategy in place?

Plan to succeed, but also to hit a ton of roadblocks along the way. It takes time and effort to build a successful online presence, so unless one of your social posts happens to go viral, don’t bank on knocking it out of the park overnight. Building a social media strategy will help you stay on course and answer questions such as, “What social media platforms make the most sense for your company?” and “Who are you trying to target and what should the tone of your messages be?” Be prepared to revisit and revise your strategy as you’re building your online presence because chances are, you’ll quickly learn what isn’t working and will want to make immediate changes.

Spend money to make money

Social media is now a pay-to-play game in order to stay relevant and reach your target audiences. According to Hootsuite, there were 3.19 billion people and counting using social media in 2018, so people will see your content; however, algorithms are continuously changing and organic social media reach is practically non-existent. So, what does this mean? Even if a person is following your company’s page, your posts will more than likely not come across their news feed. This forces companies to spend money on social advertisements and sponsored content, allowing companies to target their content to specific audiences. Putting your content in front of the right set of eyes can generate qualified leads for your company. Budgets don’t have to be massive to make an impact. Even putting $5-10 dollars behind a post can make a huge difference in engagement and content visibility.

Consistency is key

See your strategy through and stay the course for success. Know you’re working toward the bigger picture of building your online presence, generating a significant following and gaining your audience’s trust. Consistency can be the difference between success and failure. You may have eloquently written messages and captivating content, but if you aren’t pushing out content in a timely and targeted manner, you could lose your following.

Don’t be boring; stay relevant

Stay ahead of the game by producing engaging content and keeping up with the latest social trends. Not only is there pressure to be the best source for information, but how you relay your messages will greatly impact your success on various social channels. To be frank, people get bored easily. Stand out from the crowd of generic messages or stock image graphics. Personalize your content for your audience and implement the latest trends (hint, hint: VIDEOS).

Trust the process

Manage expectations and know that it may take several months before you start seeing any form of a return on investment (i.e., engagements, conversions, increase in revenue, etc.) and that is perfectly OK. By setting and tracking realistic goals, you are still able to report on the smaller successes to work up to your ultimate goal.

* As seen in the Houston Business Journal on February 22, 2019.