One of the most important requirements of being a social media marketing guru is posting new, fresh content on all your social media channels on a daily basis. With so much going on in today’s social media, it’s easy to become lost and unseen by your beloved followers. But at the same time, you don’t want to post too much and become spammy! So where do you draw the line? In today’s confusing marketing world, it may be tough to tell. But there is an art to scheduling social media posts.

This issue does not address the big question: Why do I need to schedule social media posts? This question is brought up a lot, and most business owners don’t understand the importance of social media. Honestly, its non-negotiable! Social media builds up your reputation, and it throws your brand out into the interweb for all to see. Having a social media presence that is both engaging and engaged helps your customers know you as a brand, and it makes them more likely to come to you when your product or service is required. There are millions of people using social media, and some of that is your potential client base! Without social media, these clients are ignored, and a big opportunity is wasted.

Okay so you know you need to be taking advantage of social media, but how? To answer this essential question, we’ve come up with a list of 5 tips that are vital to having a social media presence that really makes an IMPACT.

Having trouble keeping up with the demands of social media? Give us a call at IMPACT and learn how we can help!

1. Keep your social media posts short and concise.

You may think that Facebook is a great place to throw out new products and advertise for your services. This is possible, but you need to know what you’re doing. The truth is nobody wants to sit on Facebook and read paragraph after paragraph about your new product. It’s easy right? Just pull content straight from your website and post it. Wrong. Buddy Media found that Facebook posts under 80 characters received 27% more engagement.

So you need NEW and FRESH content that no one has read before, and is short, sweet, and to the point! But this doesn’t mean you can’t post about a new product get the word out about it! The proof is in the numbers: according to Socialnomics, 47% of Americans say that Facebook is the biggest influence on purchase behavior. The key is to make short posts powerful. Your Facebook post could include a catchy ad and a link that brings them to your website; Now you’re generating traffic as well as advertising for your new product, without annoying your followers! Nifty, huh?

When it comes to Twitter, you can’t really go wrong with length. As you know, you only get 140 characters to get the information out. But without the length issue, you still need to have fresh information, and an attitude that is attractive to your followers. Links are important in your tweets! They generate a lot of traffic and can get you leads at the same time.

A HUGE mistake that a lot of companies make with their links is that they don’t shorten them. They waste a whole tweet with just a link! You’ve seen those huge URLs; some of them could gobble up your 140 characters alone! You need to use a link shortener like Google Shortener, TinyURL, or Bitly. These shorten your links to around 20 characters, leaving you 120 left to write about it. Make sure you’re not boring however! Be funny, sarcastic, and even a little mean sometimes with your posts. Show a little attitude. It makes for interesting tweets that people will want to read. This will increase your followers and your engagement with potential customers. But don’t get caught up in this, remember, tweeting is about advertising your company and your products. Stray away from this and you’ll end up with followers you don’t want, and wasting valuable time.

2. Mix up the content shared in your social media posts

Social media users get bored easily. One day your new product is the hot topic of everybody’s Facebook walls, and a week later no one remembers a thing. This is why you MUST have a variety of content that appeals to everyone in the social media world. Post a statistic every now and then, promote a blog article here and there, the list goes on. There is an endless amount of content that your company can use to keep an active, engaging social media presence.

And with an engaging presence, people will want to talk to you! You need to engage with your following and make it a 2 way street. If people comment on your Facebook posts, comment back! Simple, easy, and effective. But this goes to Twitter too! If you get 5 retweets on a post, don’t let that go unnoticed. Write back and thank them for the engagement. If you are alive and interacting on your social media platforms, you establish relationships with your followers, and they feel more comfortable with you brand. This leads to increased leads and customers for your company!

3. Ask for help!

When you are on your social media platforms, telling your following to like your status or retweet you actually helps. You may not think so, but actually if you ask your followers to retweet you, you’ll have a 12x higher retweet rate! This is very advantageous, but you can’t do this every time you tweet. Remember there can always be too much of a good thing!

4. Make sure you know when to post/tweet!

Believe it or not, some times of the day produce more or less clicks on links. The best times to be posting on you social media platforms are earlier in the workweek, between 1PM ET and 3PM ET. Also, don’t post after 3PM ET on a Friday, or after 8PM ET on other days. Obviously if you can’t sleep one night and you decide to go on Twitter at 2 AM you’re not going to get the most clicks, but you should try different times throughout the day to see when you get the best results. It takes time to see when your specific company gets the most interaction.

After a while of consistent tweeting at various points during the day, check out your statistics and see when you got the most clicks or retweets. Then use this data to your advantage to make a fully optimized social media program. Another big point that most people wouldn’t guess is that the day of the week that you tweet does not matter. Because of this, dont be afraid to post on the weekends! Mondays and Thursdays have the lowest clickthrough rate, so you may want to start moving these tweets to the weekend.

5. How Frequently do I post on social media?

We hear this question a lot. And, the simple but obvious answer is, post in whatever frequency your following demands. Its never the answer you want to hear, but it really is the only accurate answer out there. There is no defined rule that will ban you for life from social media if you break it, but only among your specific followers. Try different frequencies out, and see what gets the most results! If you are creating content, interacting with followers, promoting you brand, or whatever, you could potentially be posting over 100 times per day.

But if out of these 100 tweets, you get retweeted 5 times and a couple comments, then you are just using valuable time where it isn’t needed. But if you get a retweet on every one and you have thousands of comments coming in, then you are tailoring to your audience and doing what is best for your company’s image and reputation. Now research shows that followings peak at around 22 tweets per day. So accounts that tweet around 22 times per day tend to have the biggest followings. Thats a lot of tweets! Now I’m not saying that you need to tweet 22 times a day, but don’t be afraid to tweet a lot. That’s what Twitter is made for, so you should experiment with how much you tweet!

How many times a day do you tweet for your business? Facebook? Need help organizing and generating your company’s social media campaign? Talk to our team today about our Social Media options!