You have put in the hard work to get your content published and if you are like most people will share it across your social media channels. But is just sharing your posts the best way to get the most traction on social media given the work you have put into creating content?
Wouldn’t it be better if you could increase your visibility and create engagement with your audience regardless of whether you use paid or organic means?
Here are 7 must-use strategies you can dive into and implement to boost your blog’s social media marketing.
Get creative with visual media
According to the Social Media Marketing Industry Report 74% of social media marketers use visual assets in their social media marketing and 60% use video.
To give your blog posts the best chance consider adding the following types of visual media if you aren’t already –
- Add pinnable tall images (735px x 1102px)
- Add wide shareable images for Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn (1200px x 628px)
- Craft captions to images that will spur discussion and conversation
- Add videos where appropriate.
- Share videos on YouTube
A social media scheduling tool like Blog2Social can also help with selecting appropriate images for each social media platform.
Buffer, for example, uses a variety of visual media including emojis to promote content on their Twitter account, as they did with this tweet –
Use compelling calls to action
Adding a compelling call to action is vital to keeping your audience engaged. Consider for example the following statistics:
- According to Unbounce more than 90% of visitors who read your headline also read your CTA copy.
- According to Adroll – adding CTAs to your Facebook page can increase the click-through rate by 285%.
Social media users are inundated with content and information so keep them from getting bored, and speak to their need for instant gratification by providing a call to action. Don’t just offer them access to a newsletter but instead things like coupons, email promotions, and on-location benefits.
Nandos in the UK made the most of final-year school students receiving their A-level results with this post on their Facebook page.
Evoke emotions from users but most importantly be honest
A study of over 1400 ads, identified that emotional content succeeded twice as much as non-emotional content. Content that evokes happiness is shared the most.
But research by SproutSocial found that while happiness and humor is good, what consumers want most from brands on social media is honesty. Being friendly and helpful were also sought after.
Jet Blue, for example, deals with customer service issues as transparently as they can with tweets like this –
Consider platform preferences
We are increasingly seeing shifts in the social media space where more platforms are beginning to have the same functions. However, a lot of these platforms have retained their unique culture despite a lot of crossover taking place.
For example, Facebook is still a casual place to hang out and post cute pictures enter into discussions with family and friends etc. Twitter, on the other hand, lends itself to news and character-limited comments and opinions.
Your audience too has platform preferences and with each platform a set of expectations based on the platform and your brand. For example, showing off your personality on Twitter, Facebook and YouTube are considered acceptable but not so much on LinkedIn according to research.