What is Social Media Optimization?
Social media optimization is strategically using social media profiles in order to grow the online presence of a business or organization. You can use social media optimization to help build brand awareness, announce new products or services, and interact directly with customers.
Why Use Social Media Optimization?
72% of adults in the United States use at least one social media site, according to Pew Research Center. Social media, which now includes YouTube, is where your customers are no matter what your products are and whether your business is B2C or B2B. Social media profiles are also free for businesses to create, and most offer on-platform pay-per-click advertising with advanced targeting features. Social media is one of the most powerful and cost effective digital tools when you have the right strategy behind it.
Top Social Media Platforms:
- YouTube
Tips for Building Your Social Media Strategy
- Cross-Platform Consistency: Make sure your profile pictures, usernames, bios, and banner images are consistent across social media platforms. Using outdated or inconsistent logos or messaging on your social platforms can cause confusion for customers.
- Know Your Customers’ Social Preferences: Older adults spend more time on Facebook while younger crowds spend more time on Instagram, and more women use Pinterest than men. When building your buyer personas for your company, make sure you’re taking note of the social networks they use to invest your energy on the right content for the right platform.
- The 80/20 Rule: Share content from outside sources that’s relevant to your business. Success with social media means consistent posting, and curating content from other sources can help keep your followers interested. In fact, brands tend to have more success with social media when their content is only 20% promoting their own brand. The remaining 80% should come from outside sources or non-promotional content.
- Have a Disaster Plan Ready: Social media is a great way to connect with your audience on a personal level, but a social media scandal can spread almost at the speed of light. Instead of waiting for a disaster, plan ahead, and have steps to take if something goes wrong on social media and how you’ll respond. Make sure to keep track of who has access to your accounts, too, and make sure passwords get changed if an employee with access leaves the company. We recommend creating a company account for platforms like Facebook so employees don’t have to use their personal social accounts for business.
- Create a Posting Schedule: Scheduling posts in advance, even just one week, can take some of the stress of social media management. Many platforms have social media schedulers, but we prefer the HubSpot social media tool within the Marketing Hub.
