If you know what you’re doing, social media can be a great thing for your business. The trick is to really understand the spirit of each site and tailor your posts accordingly. Last week I looked at best practices for LinkedIn, YouTube, Vine, Instagram, and blogging – you can find that post here if you missed it the first time around. This week, I’ll be finishing up by talking about Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, tumblr, and Snapchat, and the techniques covered in this handy infographic from myclever Agency. Let’s see what they recommend.
This is the platform most people have the most experience with, but many may not have mastered best practices just yet. Here’s how to get the most out of Facebook.
- Frontload your status update with enough information to get your audience to click – many are using mobile, so text will be cut off after three lines or so. But don’t reveal everything – you want your audience to click for more.
- Upload videos, but make sure that they play well even without sound – videos are muted by default unless users click them.
- Keep your post mobile-friendly, using simple imagery.
- Take advantage of the Facebook Live feature, and make the most of it by pre-promoting your Live stream.
- Engage with users in the comments and try to be online when they are – you can use your Insights page to check that data.
- Posts with links get more engagement – load up your linked posts with large images for the best mobile engagement.
- 3pm-9pm on weekdays and 10am-1pm on weekends.
Twitter makes you keep your updates short and sweet, but you can still pack a punch.
- Livestream events directly to your feed using apps like Periscope or Meerkat.
- Using images drives your engagement – make sure to optimize by resizing pics to 1280×720 when possible.
- Instead of sharing a YouTube link, uploaded your videos directly – this will allow them to play directly in the feed, making them easier to view and engage with.
- Post polls to get to know your users and get them to interact with your brand.
- If you want a @mention to be visible in your follower’s feeds, use a period before their handle – otherwise, only mutual followers will be able to see it.
- Share content from other users that has value for your own followers.
- Best time to tweet: 1pm-6pm on weekdays.
Boost your re-pins and engagement with these simple fixes.
- Keep your pictures portrait-style for the best results, and make sure that your images are colorful and compelling.
- Include keywords and a lot of description in your text, but don’t use hashtags – some research has shown that they may lessen your search reach.
- Avoid featuring human faces in your pins – they get 23% fewer re-pins.
- If your boards are locations-specific, include your location in your uploads – this allows you to be featured in location-based searches and browsing.
- Best time to pin: 12pm-2pm or 8pm to 1am.
tumblr
tumblr is a rapidly-growing micro-blogging platform that is heavy on sharing (or “re-blogging”). While it caters more to B2C, some B2B companies have managed to build a presence. Here’s how to join them:
- Follow people in order to get immersed in the community and keep up with trends and lingo.
- Know your post types, and use them skillfully.
- Use relevant, accurate, and trending hashtags to get your content found more easily.
- Choose a good theme that fits your brand and content.
- Reblog other people’s content if it offers value to your followers, but always credit the source.
- Best time to post: 8pm-12am.
Snapchat
This is a platform that has been getting a lot of buzz (and users!) of late. Here are some quick tips to help you get snapping in style.
- Keep your videos mobile-friendly by recording them vertically.
- Make sure that your photos feature good lighting and your videos have minimal background noise
- Filters are a huge part of Snapchat – you can add location-targeted filters or use a face-recognition filter to add a playful flair to your snaps. Keep track of which filters are popular.
- Be smart with your captions – you don’t have a lot of space, so use it to engage with viewers via a question or call to action
- Best time to snap: 4pm-11pm.
Now that we’ve covered all 10 platforms, let me know in the comments which platform your company is interested in experimenting with next.
