How To Dramatically Improve Your Social Media Results in 5 Simple Steps
In order to improve your results, in the long run, it’s not enough to simply bump up your ad budget – even though that can be helpful short term.
To improve your results quickly – and get them to stay there, you need to make some tweaks and changes to your current social media strategy, and to achieve results, there are some key pointers you need to know about- and follow:
- Always provide value
- Provide more than you promote. (80/20 rule should be followed)
- Engage and listen to your audience
1. Post at least once a day (and find the ultimate number of posts)
No matter which social media expert you ask, you need to post something every day. Maybe not on every single social platform that you use (even if that is ideal), but on any of them, is a good start.
Depending on which study you read and who you ask, you’ll most likely get different answers on how many posts you should share a day, and the truth is that the number of posts for ultimate engagement and results varies across platforms.
For example, in a study by DowSocial on how many posts you can make on some of the major social platforms before the engagement started to drop.
On the other hand, Bufferapp found the following number of posts on the platform to be the best:
It’s obvious that the information and numbers vary, and as I always say when they do, it’s best to experiment on your own to see what suits your audience best.
While choosing between two or three posts can be a bit overkill, having the rule of one post a day in mind is a recommendation. If you don’t have time to post on all of your social platforms a day, post on one or two, however, sharing one post a day on all is a recommendation to reach more people and keep your brand on top of their mind.
If you let days, weeks, or even months pass between your posts, some of the following scenarios may happen:
People will believe you have quit, leading to them unfollowing you because they don’t see any reason to why they should follow you anymore. People choose to follow accounts in order to stay updated on their posts, but if they suddenly stop posting, leaving no indications of return, what’s the purpose of following that account?
Also, with new social algorithms such as Instagram and Facebook algorithm that decide the content that is displayed in people’s feed, skipping posting for a while won’t exactly help you.
The algorithms are partly based on which content people interact with, but if you don’t post anything, people won’t be able to interact with it, leaving your account slowly fading away from their feed to give space to other, more active accounts.
As a result, because they don’t see your content in their feed, they might unfollow you.
Whatever the scenario, the outcome seems to alway be unfollowing – and that’s a huge loss for you, as you’re losing valuable connections with potential customers.
2. Think about the algorithms
Continuing on the algorithm subject. All of the major social platforms are now using some type of algorithm to decide what type of content gets displayed in people’s feed. The content that gets surfaced in people’s feed is content that the algorithm has “understood” that you like, more correctly believe you like, based on your previous interactions, and other factors1 as well.
While most algorithms aren’t as cruel as Facebook, leaving your account with an average of just a few percent, it’s no secret that the algorithms dramatically limits your organic reach.
As a result, you need to take different approaches in order to battle the algorithms and win a bigger reach.
The number one approach to this matter is as simple as doing point number one. By posting every single day, you make sure your followers engage with your content, leaving the algorithms to believe that they like your content, and will, therefore, continue to display it in their feeds.
3. Always provide value
Every time people see a self-promotional post, they roll their eyes and keep scrolling. When people go to social media, it’s not because they feel the need to look at ads, that’s for sure.
It’s to get entertained, stay updated with their friends and family, be entertained, and to get knowledge. Two of the mentioned things are things that you can provide them. These can also be referred to as value.
The general rule for marketers that applies is the 80/20 rule. This basically means post 80% content that provides value, and 20% promotional content. However, this does by no means mean that you can’t mix business with pleasure and share content that promotes your business at the same time as it provides value.
Your main goal shouldn’t just be to “make sales” on social media. Your goal should be to build up relationships and trust, which ultimately leads to sales, and that’s exactly what you do when you provide value with your content, not when you share promotional content.
You can share anything from entertaining, to informing, to educational to content that makes them laugh. All of these are examples of content that brings value to your followers.
4. Engage with your audience
Whenever I get the question “what is the key to social media success”, I say “Engaging with your audience”.
While there are much more ingredients to a successful social media presence, I can still say audience engagement, because I have seen the incredible results it brings, time and time over, to the point where I simply cannot ignore it.
In fact, I can say that engaging with my audience on social media has been the single most important thing that has lead me to have 6 Instagram accounts with 20K to 350K followers. However shortly after comes quality content, but that’s for another time.
By engaging with your audience, you take advantage of so many benefits. And not surprisingly, it takes us back to point number 2, simply because algorithms play such a vital role in social media strategy today.
Whether you respond to a comment that someone has left on your post, liking their posts, answering to a private message, or asking questions in your caption, leading to more comments, it results in one thing: they engage more with you.
You’ve probably been able to guess it by now, but as a result of them engaging more with your brand and page, you also make the algorithm think that your page is highly relevant to them, making the algorithm always display your content in their feed (and often high up), leading to you getting more engagements on your post, leading to more reach, leading to a continued growth.
It’s like a positive circle. Share content regularly, and engage with your audience and you’ll be able to see tremendous results.
5. Listen to your audience
A part of engaging with your audience is also to listen to them.
Since your audience is the people who you share your content with, listening to them about what they have to say about the content you share, and how you share it is key for improvement and always improving your social strategy – and as a result, also your social media results.
Some great ways to hear what your audience has to say are the following:
Ask questions in your posts, make polls, ask questions on more personal level, which means one on one, audit your social media account and measure the results your posts have generated.
All of these things let you know what type of content resonates the best with your audience, and tweaking your content strategy based on the information you get will help you reach new heights on social media.
