Providing your brand with a powerful tool to reach a wide audience, social media is an integral part of modern marketing. With 4.26 billion users across various platforms, it yields unparalleled opportunities for businesses of all sizes to expand their reach, build brand awareness and drive sales.
But simply having a presence on social media isn’t enough. In a competitive marketplace, you need to create targeted content that resonates with your audience to see your online presence grow!
In this guide, we’ll explore the best practices for sharing content on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and Tiktok to help you create an effective social media strategy bound for success. Read on to find out how.
How To Identify The Right Social Media Platform For Your Business
You wouldn’t bake a cake without the right ingredients, would you? Before you jump the gun, it’s important to identify the avenue most likely to reach your audience. Only then can you focus your social efforts on the platforms that will help you achieve your marketing goals.
To help you select the right option for your brand, we’ve explored five major social media apps and their unique features in the list below.
Facebook: With 96 billion monthly active users, Facebook is the largest social media platform in the world. Used by most businesses to build brand awareness and connect with consumers, it’s increasingly popular among retail brands and service providers as a means of driving traffic and encouraging engagement.
Instagram: A highly visual platform, Instagram is ideal for brands seeking a way to aesthetically showcase a range of products and services; from clothing to wedding venues. Most popular among Millennials and Gen Z, the platform can be used to target both males and females aged 18-34.
Twitter: With a limit of 280 characters per post, Twitter is a platform for short-form, text-focused content. It’s used by journalists, politicians and celebrities, making it a great option for brand’s looking to join in on conversations related to their industry. Twitter can also be used to build effective and engaged communities.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a professional networking platform that’s favoured for B2B marketing. It’s used to connect with professionals and share industry-specific content, such as white papers and case studies. The platform is also one of the largest job sites in the world, popular among recruiters and agencies looking to attract new employees.
TikTok: TikTok is a relatively new platform, but it’s the fastest growing in the history of social media! Like Instagram, the highly visual video-sharing app provides an ideal environment to showcase products or services to Gen Z and Millennials; from homeware to food. TikTok challenges and trends can even help businesses generate brand awareness.
Now you’ve identified the platform that best suits your brand, it’s time to turn your attention to content creation. But first, let’s dive into the algorithms that can affect your reach!
Carefully Crafting The Right Content For Each Platform’s Algorithm
You may have a campaign in mind, but are you certain that it’s tailored to perform well against the algorithm? A way of sorting posts in a users’ feed via relevancy, algorithms have a huge impact on reach.
Based on a set of rules and signals that automatically rank content, they determine posts that perform best. And though they’re tricky to stay on top of, working with the algorithm (rather than against it) is a fail-safe method of keeping your brand on your audience’s feeds!
Here are our tips for crafting content guaranteed to satisfy the current algorithms of Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and TikTok.
Facebook: Facebook is a visual platform, where images and videos typically perform best. Your brand can leverage the platform’s algorithm by creating live videos, tutorials and behind-the-scenes content, whilst running contests and giveaways to encourage your followers to engage.
Instagram: Instagram was launched as a photo-sharing platform. But since 2021, it has prioritised video over static images. To get the most out of the platform, showcase your brand’s products and services via a combination of high-quality images and reels, alongside user-generated content. And remember to use hashtags as a means of increasing the visibility of your posts!
Twitter: As a text-focused platform, Twitter is used by brands to share snappy, short form content including product launches and industry news. Though the algorithm is one of the best kept secrets in social media, we do know that audience engagement is vital for ensuring that your tweets are prioritised. Visuals are also important on the app, with GIFs and ‘memes’ being particularly effective.
LinkedIn: LinkedIn is a professional networking platform, used to share industry-specific content such as blog posts, news articles and white papers. The platform has a strong focus on thought leadership, with the algorithm favouring posts that pose questions and include three topic-related hashtags.
TikTok: Like Instagram, TikTok is another highly visual platform with short-form videos being the primary type of content. As trending music and challenges are most likely to go viral, your brand should look to incorporate such influences, whilst including hashtags in captions to reach the widest audience possible.
By tailoring content to fit each social media’s specific audience and algorithm, your brand is bound to reach the top of your follower’s feed. Now let’s explore some examples of the content you should be posting on each platform!
Facebook values high-quality visual content, such as photos and video. More recently, streams have been climbing the ranks of popularity on the platform, providing brand’s with an opportunity to connect with their audience in real-time.
Interaction is also a crucial component of a successful Facebook strategy. To encourage your followers to recommend your services to others, you must regularly engage through comments and messages. And to further increase brand awareness and reach, you should consider giveaways, polls and competitions as part of your content plan.
Don’t forget to add a CTA to your posts, as Facebook has one of the highest recorded click through rates of any social platform!
With 2.35 billion monthly active users, Instagram is the fourth most popular social media platform. The visual app provides a natural fit for businesses looking to aesthetically position their products and services through the use of static image and video. Though, a focus on the latter is proven to be more effective.
Earning your brand up to 40% more engagement than photos alone, reels are Instagram’s ultimate format. Paired with trending audio, they’re guaranteed to reach an audience outside of your followers. And posted alongside relevant hashtags, they’ll appear in relevant search results too!
Stories can also be shared on Instagram to give your followers ‘live’ content from the behind the scenes of your brand. But ultimately, a focus on all three options is the smartest way forward.
Twitter is host to snappy, text-focused content that grabs attention. With a limit of 280 characters per tweet, it encourages brands to get creative to convey their message effectively.
The most popular social media platform for news, it’s used to share business and industry findings. Though humour is popular on Twitter too, with ‘memes’ and gifs being particularly effective when paired with high-quality text.
Hashtags are an integral part of the platform, used to join relevant conversations and increase visibility. And engagement on Twitter is just as important. A popular option for community building, the app utilises mentions and direct messaging to provide brands with an opportunity to mould strong relationships with their followers.
Designed for industry professionals, LinkedIn is a hub for B2B marketing. Through the posting of white papers, case studies and articles, it provides an ideal environment to showcase thought leadership and expertise.
More ‘serious’ in tone than other platforms, content shared on LinkedIn tends to be educational. Though, to highlight your brand’s personality, ‘behind the scenes’ campaigns focused on your culture and employees should be shared too.
Engagement on LinkedIn is another must! By commenting in industry groups and using well-researched hashtags, you’re more likely to connect with customers and clients of value – potentially driving more leads in the process.
TikTok
TikTok is the latest platform to catapult brand’s into the mainstream. Reaching 100 million users in a year, the short-form video sharing app is renowned for its ability to push brands into a viral limelight.
Trending music and ‘challenges’ are the trademark of TikTok. Likewise, the popularity of the platform among influencers provides a unique opportunity for collaboration.
But it just doesn’t come down to video – text is important too! As more users rely on the platform’s search engine capabilities, the use of relevant hashtags and keywords in captions will help your brand increase its reach.
Our Thoughts On Social Media Content Creation
Whilst reading this guide, have you rushed to create brand accounts on every social media platform? Don’t! Having a strong social media presence is crucial for the growth of your brand, but not all social platforms are guaranteed to yield results.
Instead, you should consider each platform’s unique benefits before deciding whether or not to include it in your social media strategy. You must also understand your sector, audience and their personas to ensure that you’re reaching the right consumer with the right message. And when new platforms emerge, you should invest in resources to further your social media education and stay ahead of the curve.
At LS Media and Marketing, we know that the right approach on social media can help your business achieve its goals! Our social specialists are on hand to identify the right platform for your product, and create content guaranteed to see your online presence grow. Click here to get in touch, or find out how we increased our client’s leads by 63% through the power of social media alone.
