5 Social Media Optimization Strategies to Grow Your Online Influence

Written by Alexandra
Written by Alexandra

Content Manager at SocialBee

Social media optimization might sound intimidating, but in reality, it’s a set of simple practices that can make a significant difference in your business results.

Even though the first instinct is to think about technical, tedious practices, social media optimization is a way to allow your brand’s creativity and personality to flourish and boost your performance.

If you are curious, keep reading our list of best social media practices.

1. Use Relevant Social Media Platforms

social media platforms

Nowadays, there are a lot of social media platforms at our disposal. But creating an account on all of them is not sustainable. Putting effort and creating engaging content for key social media platforms is much more efficient than managing too many accounts with a mediocre presence and low-quality content.

You should direct the majority of your attention towards your audience and focus on their content needs. Here are some of the questions you need to ask yourself before choosing the social media platforms that suit your business the most:

On what social media platforms does your target audience spend the most time?

  • What kind of content do they prefer?
  • What is the predominant age group?
  • What do they do for a living?
  • When are they usually online?

Follow your target audience, and they will follow back. Besides creating profit, you should prioritize making connections and building a meaningful community; this will bring long-term benefits for your business.

2. Research Valuable Keywords

keyword research for social media

Keywords are a social media optimization practice that elevates any marketing strategy and brings more visibility to a business.

What do people search for when they are interested in your services? Chances are, they won’t search for the name of your business. So, how can you make yourself seen among your competitors?

First, you need to forget everything about your products and try to think like a customer. Next, use the autocomplete option on different search engines and see how people phrase and use words to search for your products or services. What you want to do through this is to cater to their wants and needs.

Determining the best keywords for your business objectives requires a great understanding of your target audience and detailed keyword research. So, you have to go beyond the language they use and find out other important aspects about them:

  1. What are their interests?
  2. What are the issues they encounter that you can help with?
  3. What are their main service providers?

While choosing the best terms to use in your content, you have to know the factors that determine a good keyword. Here are the main aspects to consider:

  • Search volume: This shows you how many people are interested in a specific product/service or subject in a certain period. For example, people will search for Mariah Carey songs starting November, with a peak in December.

These metrics help you:

  1. Determine if there is an audience for the terms you plan to use
  2. Find out the best times to boost your strategy, and develop new campaigns that will bring you more profit
  • Relevance: Even though you identify a word with a significant search volume, you first need to ask yourself if it’s relevant for your objectives. As an example, let’s say you only sell clothing for pets. Using keywords such as “t-shirts,” “sweaters,” or “hats” would be misleading, and you will end up wasting funds on words that will not bring you, customers. Effective keywords should always act as a link between your website and your potential customer’s needs
  • Competition: Finding a relevant keyword might also mean that it’s a competitive word. Meaning that it will be difficult to rank in Google’s search results because the word is also used by many of your competitors. Keep in mind that long-tail keywords might be more effective for your business because they are more appropriate for your niche. Try to find a balance between a word’s popularity and the advantages it can bring to you

For great social media optimization, learn how to perform keyword research for the most popular social media platforms.

3. Update Your Social Media Accounts

social media optimization

Social media profiles are influential platforms that need to represent your image and lead to better business results. Also, all your accounts should be consistent in the visuals and content you post for your target audience.

Fill all the requirements of a social media page with relevant information:

Profile picture – Use your logo and the visual elements that represent your business identity. In this way, you will become easily recognized across all platforms

Cover image – Here, you can add relevant details that go hand-in-hand with the profile picture and also emphasize your identity

Bio – Keep it short, simple, and straight to the point. Moreover, include contact information to make it easier for customers to reach out to you.

In a way, social media platforms are the linking path between your potential customers and your products and services. All the content you share on your business accounts builds a presence and a business personality that connects with your audience. Having this in mind, you need to be consistent and have a predefined tone of voice for the content you post on your social media channels.

Elements you need to include in your social media communication:

  1. Visuals – make your content more attractive
  2. Links – direct your audience to your money pages or bring traffic to your website
  3. CTAs – encourage people to act (read an article, buy a product/service, get in contact with you, book an appointment, etc.)
  4. Marketing messages – bring brand awareness and sell your products and services

4. Optimize Your Social Media Content

optimize your social media content

Every platform is different, so you shouldn’t copy/paste the same social media posts across all your platforms. To ensure you have all the information you need, join us while we analyze some of the most popular social media platforms and share the best content practices for each one of them.

Facebook

Facebook is a platform where you can mix every type of content available to you. So why not play with ideas and elevate your social media strategy with some of our suggestions?

Ask questions

Your posts should focus on gaining reach and social media engagement. A simple way to engage with people is to start a conversation by asking an open question. You can either go for something related to your business that would help you get more feedback, or a question that will give you more insight about your audience.

Show transparency

Bring your audience closer to your business by sharing more about your team, work strategy, and the process behind your products or services. Moreover, you can even include your clients and share their stories or experience with your company.

This type of content will bring more personality to your brand while showing transparency and bringing your audience closer.

Use videos

Video content has better performance on Facebook. Although it requires a little more work, it pays off in reach and engagement. But what can be made in video format? You can create testimonials, interviews, tutorials, and even educational content in a more attention-grabbing format.

Share product photos

Get in touch with your artistic side and make some art with your product photography. You can experiment with location, lighting, and even add some interesting visuals on the editing part of the process. Who knows? One random idea can make you go viral. If a banana stuck to a wall can do it, you can too.

social media content examples

Use infographics

Infographics are a great way to make data easy to understand and make it exciting. If longer texts are not attractive and people usually skip over them, you have found yourself a shortcut.

Especially when your goal is to educate people through your content, this combination of clever design and pleasant colors can trick your audience into engaging with your content and gaining valuable knowledge because of it.

Show your colors

What if we told you that you could mix images, text, and branded visuals in one post? This way, you can make your content stand out while bringing authentic elements that make you recognizable.

Furthermore, you can share memes, quotes, tips, and tricks, all while adding your logo and design elements to keep your social media posts on brand.

Promote blog posts

Social media is not a place where long informational text content thrives, so you have to keep things short while still providing valuable information. But there is a way you can have the best of both worlds. You can promote blog posts on your Facebook account with attractive descriptions that will redirect your audience to your other platforms. As a result, you will gain traffic to your website and get people more interested in your content.

Other content ideas to implement in your social media strategy:

  • Sales and discounts
  • Celebratory content
  • Contests and giveaways
  • Holiday-themed posts
  • Product launches and events

Instagram

Instagram is a visual platform that can be more creatively challenging depending on the nature of your business, but you can always find new ways to provide engaging content for your target audience.

Use Instagram Stories

Instagram stories are a great way to interact with your followers by using polls and interactive fun content.

Also, Instagram Live has increased in popularity during the COVID-19 pandemic. This feature allows you to build meaningful connections with your audience. Use Instagram Live to share knowledge, create Q&As, giving them behind-the-scenes of your process, or even introducing new products or services.

Get started with Instagram Reels

Additionally, Instagram Reels can bring a boost of personality to your brand. It is an opportunity to hop on trends and show that you are not a one-dimensional presence. Now it is your chance to be more relatable and incorporate a little bit of humor into your strategy.

Use Instagram’s online shopping feature

Moreover, Instagram makes it easy for businesses to sell their products with the online shopping feature. If your customers are interested in one of your products, they will have a smooth buying process that will save them precious time.

Don’t forget about the search engine features. Using the right hashtags can boost your reach because Instagram will assign your content to categories of interest for your target audience, thus providing more visibility for your business.

Twitter

On Twitter, you can easily encourage a dialog between your business and your target audience. Use the pool feature and ask questions that are interesting to you, and encourage your followers to do the same.

By doing this, you get insightful information about your customers while creating buzz about your business. Moreover, share thoughts and views that reinforce your vision and mission.

Showcase your blog content and share meaningful studies and news that are related to your industry. Due to the informative quality of your social media posts, your audience will have a reason to follow your activity.

Visual elements can increase your engagement by three times. Always have in mind an element that can add a humorous take on the information shared, provide more context, or just make the post more attractive. Humor can boost your content if done right. Learning how to be funny, but at the same time tasteful in your approach can take your copywriting skills to the next level.

LinkedIn

LinkedIn is a platform built more for professional purposes, different from Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter which are more focused on entertainment and recreation.

The average time spent on LinkedIn is significantly lower than on the platforms mentioned earlier, totaling two hours a week.

People have a clear goal in mind while on the platform: discover educational content that will elevate their knowledge in a certain field, or posting content that will bring them closer to business opportunities.

LinkedIn is a great platform for communicating and building relationships with other people interested in your industry. To do that, you have to prove yourself as a reliable source of information. Don’t be afraid to link to sources other than your business because it will help you gain credibility.

Business content thrives on LinkedIn, so don’t hold back on posts that relate to your industry. Furthermore, it is a platform that allows you to build your brand by sharing business goals and plans.

5. Use Social Media Management Tools

the benefits of social media management tools

Social media management tools are a great way to optimize your social media presence. Because all platforms require a certain amount of activity, keeping up with all of them while also providing valuable and new content for each and one of them can be overwhelming. Luckily, there are a lot of platforms that will help you create, schedule, and post your content on all the social media accounts.

The most important benefits of social media management tools:

  1. Social media calendar structure
  2. Organized workflow
  3. Team-work friendly
  4. Time-saving features
  5. Scheduling options

Management tools will bring your social media optimization strategy to the next level. Because this is such an important aspect, make sure to read more about social media management tools and their features.

Before You Go

This information is a good base for you to start your social media optimization. The great news is that you can only go up; improve your social media strategy, be creative, connect and build the community that will allow you to grow and succeed. If you still find yourself uncertain about the right ways to go about social media optimization, we are only a call away. Book a free call and find out how SocialBee can help with your social media needs!

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Article written by

Article by

Alexandra
Alexandra

Content writer at SocialBee

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