SOCIAL MEDIA SERVICES

There are many platforms for social media sharing, each with its own interest and usage.

These platforms involve:

• Social Networks – Facebook, Linkedin, Google+
• Bookmarking Sites – Pinterest, Instagram
• Social News Site – Twitter, Reddit, Quora
• Media Sharing – Youtube, Vimeo, Pinterest
• Social Review Sites – TripAdvisor, FourSqauare, Yelp, Airbnb

Social News sites are commonly used to allow users to share and post links to external articles. These platforms emphasise on speed and consistency of news updates and are also commonly filled with links and resources.

Some aspects of a social news site function similarly to a forum, allowing companies to gain an insight into the potential problems that their clients would like to know more about. Sites like these usually include forum news sites like Reddit and Quora, although Twitter has been gaining momentum for opinionated content pieces due to its recent character limit change.

This makes for excellent content planning and market research.

Microblogging is a recent trend involving users submitting written content and opinion pieces to share and discuss with the community. Surpassing over two billion page views per month, Reddit is a platform whereby exciting and unique content quickly gains traction. Valuable content would reap tremendous organic traffic as it attracts Reddit users to give the article a second look.

Sites like these are also a decent method of obtaining backlinks by finding the right areas to promote your content and offering it as a form of resource.

Media sharing social sites allow users to share media in various mediums. The most popular mediums are videos and images.

Most of the sites also offer social features such as profile and comment sections, encouraging interactions between content consumers and content creators. The barrier to entry is relatively low, making it easy for any new companies to enter, curate and slowly tweak to find the winning formula for viral trends and online popularity.

Reviews from community members, local and international, from anywhere in the world, can be found on review sites. Location-based services and experience-based services stand to benefit from this social media marketing channel due to the coverage they receive.

Reviews are valuable. They provide prospects with the required information to help them make a more informed decision. Businesses would also get to benefit by understanding the customer’s perspective and demands from their industry. This can allow them to identify what is working, and what needs further improvement.

Yelp and FourSqaure are important for physical businesses looking to imprint their digital marketing footprint. Register on these sites to start claiming your location spot. Consider extra incentives in the form of discounts or free gifts to get your customers to contribute to your online presence. This can be done via a check-in or an online review.

Be it small or big and local or international, Social Media Marketing is suitable for all types of businesses, so do not worry if you are a small local business. In fact, Social Media Marketing can act as the starting step for you since it is so easy to just create a Social Media account and promote your products and services there. You can also manage all your Social Media platforms on your own at the start. If you require more assistance with Social Media Marketing, you can engage our Social Media services by contacting us today.

User-Focused, Audience-Attentive

Focus more on knowing everything you can know about your audience.

Allow your audience to know you better.

Showing and not telling is the age-old method of engaging your viewers. More often than not, the tone of the article matters.

Placing details in the format of ‘What Have I Done Before’ rather than ‘Who am I’ allows you to keep your pitch or language fresh.

Do a Social Media Audit

A social media audit is not only useful, but it should also be mandatory.

Businesses have to transit from stage to stage as time passes. With each phase comes a new marketing focus and thus, a new strategy is required to pilot the social media marketing efforts.

Running a social media audit can be as fast as an hour. The process involves using your business analytics and metrics to access any growth opportunities you should focus on or give up on. Similarly, it lets you know any other opportunities that you might have missed.

Form a Team!

You cannot do it alone, especially when some tasks require simultaneous attention. Having a team to perform tasks and clear the weekly work for you helps you to accelerate your progress.

You want to be able to do things effectively and efficiently. Having a team of like-minded and productive individuals is the best way to achieve that.

Find Your Voice and Tone

Before you start sharing and managing your social media accounts, it is essential to remember that social media is all about a voice and tone.

Voice is what you say, while tone is how you mean and say it.

Content will always be similar, having similar key points or arguments. However, it is the voice of the person behind the screen that makes a social media account interesting.

For example, Telegram’s snarky comments about its rival WhatsApp, in a sarcastic yet unoffensive way, have managed to garner online popularity. Screenshots make rounds across the internet.

Fast food restaurant Wendy’s made full use of the online viral trend in 2018 to take a shot at McDonald’s, striking a chord with its followers.

To achieve all these in a controlled manner, you should spend some time coming up with a persona and ‘team personality’. Use your customer base, demographic and company’s mission as a guide.

Ask yourself these:

• If my brand had a personality, what would it be?
• If my brand was a person, what hobbies or defining factors would it have?
• If my brand is alive, what is its role in the customers’ lives?
• Is there any competition that is already adopting this persona?
• What words/character/personality do you want your customers to relate your brand to?

Aim to cultivate an online voice that understands and engages your customers. Make your customers excited and interested in what you have to say. This way, they will be thrilled to spread your content and excited when you have an update.

Plan Your Content Uploads

Having a content upload calendar is crucial to schedule your content and plan the variety of your content.

Plan your content to revolve around these six types of different updates that can be posted.

• Links
• Videos
• Images
• Quotes
• Shares
• Text Updates

Sticking to one of the six main mediums can allow you to focus your efforts on one medium. Supplement the staple medium update with a different medium to add variety to your audience’s news feed.

Timing of your posts is important

Users are scattered across different time zones because the majority of the followers only use social media platforms during certain times and not necessarily concurrently. People will inevitably log into their social media accounts at various times throughout the day.

It is necessary to know when the vast majority of your target audience logs into their social media accounts from the perspective of digital marketing. There is a greater possibility that you will improve traffic, engagement, and shares if you can pick the ideal time and day to publish. Quicksprout conducted a study that finds that your social media postings traffic can boost to as much as 39% by knowing what the ideal timing to post is.

What to do when picking your perfect post timing

Make sure your posts reflect how your followers use social media in terms of their social media behaviour. It is improbable that everyone in your target audience will interact with your brand on social media simultaneously.

Even though it is challenging to plan your posts for a high engagement rate, it does not imply that the effort is not worthwhile. If you do it well, more people will get to view and engage with your content.

Step 1: Analyse the history of all your posts

Start by reviewing your earlier posts and the times and days you posted them. If the business has previously uploaded any content, there will definitely be some data that you can use. Knowing the general location of your target audience can give you an informed guess about the ideal time you can post your content, for example, the awake periods of Singaporeans.

Step 2: Come up with a posting schedule

Once you have a good sense of the best times, you can test them out by scheduling a few posts at the specified times. You may plan and record your publishing schedules using various tools, such as Buffer, for easy tracking.

The choice as to whether to arrange your monthly content in one shot or on a weekly basis is entirely up to you. After approximately a month, you should have gathered enough information to choose the most effective times to draw in your target audience.

Step 3: Analyse your results

Once there is enough data, it is time to assess the findings. These are some ways to assist you in analysing the data you have gathered.

1. Buffer analyse

Select your chosen social media account and click "Posts" if you decide to use the analytics dashboard offered by Buffer. You can determine which posts receive the most likes and shares by filtering and ranking the posts based on this information. If you consider the posting times, you will be able to better identify when to schedule your social media content.

2. Facebook page insights

Not only does Facebook page insights give you data about your page's performance that includes the demographic information about your audience and how well they respond to your postings, you can also identify the times in the day when you receive the most engagement.

Under the "Post" Tab, it also provides a tracking feature called "When Your Fans Are Online". For up to a week, this useful function will show you the days, hours, and percentage of your followers who are online. You may then choose the ideal time frame for your postings with the help of this information.

3. Instagram insights

Comparable to Facebook Page Insights, Instagram Insights is made available to users who have a business profile on Instagram. By providing you data on the entire reach of your posts and the peak interaction periods, you can find out when your followers are most engaged with your posts by looking at the "Audience" section.

Even though the timing of your posts is important, it is not everything. You need to ensure that you have a quality social media post that will attract your target audience, so they are willing to engage with it. If you noticed your scheduled posts are not attracting the engagement rate you hoped to achieve, you might want to engage the services of a reputable digital marketing agency to take a look at your social media content.

Although the timing of your posts is crucial, it is not the only factor to boost your social media engagement. In order to draw in your target audience and encourage them to interact, your social media posts needs to be consistently of high quality. You might wish to use seek help from our services if you observed that your scheduled posts are not receiving the level of engagement you had hoped for.