So, it’s time to take the leap?
Starting out with social media marketing can be a scary prospect, and it’s hard to know where and how to get things going. And many businesses and organizations make a lot of the same novice mistakes. The following tips for social media marketing beginners will help set you on the right trajectory. Stick with them, and you’re bound to see your efforts pay off.
Tips for Social Media Marketing Beginners
1. Research the pros and cons of the different social media sites to pick the best one(s) for your organization and goals.
2. Commit to learning about and actively using every platform you create an account on.
3. Don’t worry about having a presence on every site out there; just focus on using one or a few really well.
4. Dig into each site’s rules and best practices, but don’t overlook the frowned-on behaviors.
5. Brand yourself consistently across your social media accounts.
6. Learn about the paid advertising and other paid promotional opportunities on the sites you use.
7. Fill out your profiles completely, using keywords for your industry, products, services, or cause.
8. Spell out exactly who does what on each site and create social media guidelines that are distributed to everyone involved.
9. Understand what sort of goals to set for social media marketing, write them down, and measure your success.
10. Place prominent links to your social media pages on your website.
11. Include social media share buttons on your website—especially on informative blog posts and articles.
12. Show your brand’s personality in your posts and other interactions.
13. Show off your company culture, too.
14. Check frequently for comments on your pages, tags or other types of mentions of your organization, and private messages; respond to all promptly.
15. Engage with people; the “social” is a huge part of social media marketing.
16. Acknowledge everyone who posts to you, and thank people for positive comments.
17. Know how to handle complaints on social media.
18. The first purpose of your social media accounts is to share quality content that’s of genuine interest to your target market.
19. Self-promotion is in a distant second.
20. When making promotional posts, make them relevant and valuable to your audience.
21. Speak specifically and directly to your buyer persona.
22. Don’t obsess over your number of likes, followers, or other connections; obsess on attracting your target market with posts they’ll value.
23. Share more content from other sources than your own content.
24. Remember to share your old content that’s still relevant so it continues to work for you.
25. Connect with influencers in your industry.
26. Keep a close eye on what your competitors are doing with their social media marketing.
27. Borrow from a competitor’s strategy if they’re doing something successful, but try not to be blatant about it.
28. Make your social media pages stand out from the competition.
29. Include images with your posts.
30. Post videos and infographics in addition to written content.
31. Introduce curated content with a thoughtful comment or question, rather than saying nothing or just rewriting the title.
32. Keep your posts short and to the point; posts under 100 characters tend to get the most engagement.
33. Use your social media accounts for real-time marketing.
34. Never go days without posting
35. Don’t forget to post in the evenings and on weekends (take advantage of post scheduling).
36. Pay close attention to engagement and shares so you keep getting better at delivering what your audience wants.
37. Use the site’s analytics tools to further figure out what your audience likes and what it doesn’t; regularly adapt your strategy accordingly.
38. Be passionate about what you do.
39. Be passionate about what your audience is passionate about.
40. Be genuine.
