While every day is Social Media Day, June 30th, 2021 marks the twelfth annual official global celebration of all things social media.
I’ve been a social media evangelist for the past ten years and I am still as excited by its possibilities today as I was when I sent my first tweet and wrote my first blog.
The field of social media is dynamic and constantly changing, so as practitioners we are constantly learning and adapting to changes in the ecosystem. That’s what I find so energizing about working in this area.
To celebrate Social Media Day, here are ten of my tried and tested tips for social media marketing success.
1. Perfect Your Social Profiles
Review each of your existing social profiles with these questions in mind.
· Is it time to update your bio with new information?
· Should you use a more professional image for your avatar?
· Are your header images clear and compelling?
· Are you making good use of keywords?
· Do you need to include a new call-to-action?
Insider Tip: Complete all sections of your profile and schedule a review date every month or two to check your information is still current.
2. Get To Know Your Audience Better
Develop a deeper understanding of your target audience. Where do they like to hang out online? What content is most relevant to them? What kind of information are they looking for? How do they like to consume that information?
Once you deeply know your audience, you can then start to build relationships with them and create content that is relevant to them.
Insider Tip: Creating audience personas is a crucial part of designing your social media strategy and truly understanding who you’re trying to reach.
Download my audience persona template here
3. Meet Effort With Effort
Take the time to acknowledge when a person follows you online, leaves a comment on your blog, or re-shares your content. Share and retweet their content also. Favorite a tweet to let the person know you see them.
Insider Tip: Go out of your way to publicly (and privately) celebrate and acknowledge your followers.
4. Write Better Headlines
Did you know that on average, 8 out of 10 people will read headline copy, but only 2 out of 10 will read the rest?
Your headline is the first impression you make on a prospective reader. An eye-catching headline is a key factor in getting readers to click through to your article.
Insider Tip: Read 15 Ways To Crack Captivating Headlines for tips on creating headlines that attract attention.
5. Add More Images To Your Content
People connect more emotionally with images than text, and in an increasingly crowded digital landscape, when our minds are attracted more readily to content that draws our eye, images can break through the online content clutter to quickly communicate your marketing messages.
Insider Tip: Add an image to all your online posts — even those that are text-based. To aid brand recognition and create a strong visual identity, maintain consistency across all your images by sticking to the same colors, fonts, and layouts.
Check out my guide to creating professional graphics
6. Use The Right Tools
Whether you wish to edit a video for Facebook, design a Story for Instagram, or add visual impact to your blog posts, you’ll get the task done quicker and more effectively when you have a dedicated tool to hand.
Find just the right tool at this mega list of social media tools to try.
7. Make Sure You Are Using The Right Social Network
Not all social media is created equal. Different platforms attract different audiences.
It’s important, especially if your resources are limited, that you’re focusing your social media efforts in places that will generate the most return for your efforts. There’s no point in spending your time on a particular social network if your audience isn’t there. Nor should you spread yourself too thin by trying to be everywhere at once.
Every additional channel your business is active on means additional time and effort required to engage on and create tailored content for that platform.
Read Which Social Network Is The Right One For Your Medical Practice? for more guidance.
8. Post Content At Optimal Times
Content has no value unless it’s amplified. One way to ensure amplification and optimize your social media reach is to post your content at the right time so it reaches your audience when they are online.
If you search for optimal posting times, you will find many guides online. You can follow these recommendations as a starting point, but I do recommend you do your own testing to see which days and times work best for your own particular audience within your industry.
Insider Tip: Sprout Social publishes an annual review of the best times to post to each of the major social media platforms. It may provide a good point for you to start testing optimum times for your own social media posts.
9. Repurpose Your Existing Content
One key to maintaining a steady stream of quality content is to re-purpose what you already have. By re-purposing content you have already written, you can extend and breathe new life into your current and past content.
Insider Tip: Get into the habit of creating content that can be repurposed in several different ways. Read How to Create Six Unique Social Shares From Just One Piece of Content for ideas on how to do this.
10. Don’t Just “Do Social”; “Be Social”
Finally, we all know those folks who only tweet you when they want you to read, comment or re-tweet their content. Don’t be one of those. Don’t get a reputation for being interested only when you want something. Focus on building online relationships. You can’t expect people to care about your community if you don’t care about theirs.
Health Care Social Media 