7 top tips to improve your social media marketing

Diving into the murky waters of social media marketing is a real challenge, even for people with years of offline experience. While the platforms and posts are typically free, there’s a real cost in terms of time and energy. It’s also possible to alienate customers with an off-tone comment. All in all, many businesses wonder: is social media marketing the smart way to advertise online? Our tips to improve your social media marketing will help you swim, not sink.

#1. Claim your name

Whether you’ve started a new business or are just discovering the world of social media, the first thing to do is claim your name on as many different channels as you can. Even if you have no intention of using a particular service in a professional capacity, you can prevent someone else using your name.

#2. Starting up? Stick to one channel

Social media can be overwhelming and take up hours of your time. The smart way to advertise online using these services is to limit the time you spend, and make sure you spend it as efficiently as possible. For small businesses and start ups, choosing one platform to master will help you build a better following and waste less time.

#3. Coordinate social networking and advertising

If you’re using more than one channel, you need to coordinate your efforts to ensure that your messages on paid advertising and free social media channels are reinforcing each other. This doesn’t necessarily mean that you need to target the exact same individuals or demographics in both cases.

#4. Choose targets for paid ads and social media posts

Who are you trying to reach or appeal to with a particular advert or blog post? If you don’t know, your efforts are likely to be unrewarded. Advertising lets you reach beyond your network of followers, so you may find that targeting different groups with your pay per click campaigns and your networking efforts is the smart way to advertise online.

#5. Keep it short and snappy

The best writers are usually the best self-editors: they take a windy first draft and reduce it to the salient points, perhaps even as they’re typing it out the first time. Try it yourself: reread your blog posts, comments and social media entries with an eye to making the text shorter without changing the meaning.

#6. Don’t repeat yourself too often

If a message didn’t get any shares, it’s tempting to resend it but remember that your followers will see it afresh every time you post. Rather than alienating your loyal fans, post variations of your message and don’t repeat any one comment too often. This should help to improve your social media marketing without additional spend.

#7. Pay for advertising sometimes

Often the smart way to advertise online is to pay for advertising slots. People expect these to be identical, repetitive and purely sales driven so they are generally more forgiving than social media posts which are expected to entertain.

If you are based in Portsmouth, Hampshire or surrounding areas and would like to discuss how to best use social media or digital marketing for your business, view our portfolio or make contact with our web design and digital marketing team. We really like to talk.

Back to blog list