I recently touched on how to choose the social media platforms that perform best for your business. So, once you’ve determined what channel(s) you are going to post on regularly, it’s time to dive in to understanding how you can use that platform to your best advantage. Social media platforms reward users (give their content more visibility) who use all the features the platform has to offer. Now, I know it can feel like a full time job keeping up on what updates have happened and what new feature was just released. So, I put together a quick reference guide for you to better understand what key features each social media platform offers.
- Optimize your business profile and handle. Choose a handle that helps you stand out in a crowd, using your business name is a great option as long as there isn’t someone with a similar business name to you. Use your profile bio to tell people what they can expect from your account and don’t forget to include a link to your website. You can always update this link to support a call to action in a post, if you need.
- Post important business content in your stories, this can be special offers, customer reviews, new product features, you name it! Don’t forget you can link to webpages directly from your stories now.
- Use live stories to show behind the scenes, give your professional opinion on something, answer questions (you can add a question box for your followers to submit questions), poll your followers or create quizzes.
- Reels give you the opportunity to create fun, engaging videos that are less than a minute in length. Here are some examples!
- IGTV gives you more talk time- you can post longer form video content here. Many business use IGTV to do live events that allow followers to engage in real time. This is a great place to post a product reveal, tutorial, interviews, etc.
- Highlights are how you can publicly save and organize stories that you would like to live on your profile page. Here’s how to optimize them.
- Feed posts are still important, since they really are the supporting cast of your business profile. However, as video and live content takes over instagram, they are losing the impact they once had. So, use your feed as a place to support your brand. Don’t stress about someone having to get your full business story from your feed alone.
- Boosted posts & ads are a great opportunity to expand your reach, find new followers, promote events, launch products, and more. Before you dive in to boosted posts and ads, be sure your business profile is optimized and you have regular account activity, so when new followers come to your account your profile shines.
Many of the tools on Facebook are similar to those you see on instagram. So, I won’t deep dive into each feature again. However, the same things are true here. There is one big difference between Instagram and Facebook, when it comes to growing your follower base. In order to reach a wide audience on Facebook, you have two options. First, be active in Facebook groups and second, boost your content to get visibility. I dive into both of these a bit further below.
- Facebook groups give you the opportunity to show case your business to a specific audience. This is a great way to get fresh eyes on your business, answer questions from prospective clients, and network with other businesses. Be sure to read the rules of each group, so you’re using the group how it was intended.
- Boosted posts and Facebook ads are the main way to get visibility and achieve rapid follower growth. Boosted posts are an easy, low budget way for small business owner to test the waters with advertising on Facebook, without having to have a lot of knowledge on how Facebook ads work. Here, Facebook walks you through how to boost a post. If you’re interested in Facebook ads, I recommend connecting with someone who has experience setting them up, so you aren’t blowing your budget without getting the results you were hoping for.
- Feed posts
- Stories
- Facebook Live
- Tweet multiple times per day: text only, links, photos, and video. Mixing up the content is good, here’s why.
- Retweet other people’s content
- Live tweet
- Use lists and tweet alerts to organize who you follow & engage with
- Pin a tweet to the top of your profile that helps viewers learn more about who you are and what you talk about
For more tips on marketing your business on Twitter, check out this article.
TikTok
- Use hashtags
- Jump on viral trends
- Share tutorials
- Use filters (you can even create your own branded filter)
- Collaborate with other businesses
Here are some creative ideas for how to get recognized on TikTok.
YouTube
- Fully develop your business profile
- Interact with other YouTube accounts through your business channel
- Post videos
- Do YouTube live events
- Advertise
Here are some more details on how to optimize your YouTube business account.