2022 Social Media Marketing Best Practices

Is your business achieving its goals for social media marketing? Are you seeing an increase in engaged followers? Are those followers converting to loyal clients? 

If not, you may need to compare your current practices with the best practices for social media marketing. 

Following best practices is always a good idea whether for search engine optimization (SEO), digital marketing, content strategy, or website design (among countless other business processes). The idea of using ‘best practices’ is successful because it is the logical application of the most successful, proven methods for any industry.

Best Practices for Social Media Marketing

While it’s easy to write off social media as something that people use to follow trends in fashion or to follow their friends or their favorite celebrities, social media has evolved into something much bigger. From Facebook to Twitter to TikTok, large and small businesses are seeing a social media presence as key to staying relevant in their industry.

With the latest figures estimating 3.96 billion social media users worldwide in 2022, it’s no wonder that the biggest companies in the world have continually grown their social media marketing budget each year to keep pace with their growing social media target audience.

So, let’s look at the premier best practices for social media marketing.

Create a Social Media Marketing Strategy

Just like there is a great deal of value in having a business plan, sales strategy, and marketing strategy, there is inherent value in creating a specific social media strategy. As the various aspects of digital marketing have become more intricate, it is important to use specific strategies within each subdivision. 

A good strategy helps in high-level planning that will align business goals, marketing goals, and social media activities. It is also essential for properly tracking ROI and results for social media marketing efforts. 

Along with solid marketing goals, the strategy should include how goals will be achieved, which social channels will be used, types of content and social posts, what social media and scheduling tools will be implemented, and how results will be tracked.

Identify Tools for Social Media Marketing 

There are an enormous number of tools available for social media marketing; so many that it can be very confusing. Even so, tools are an essential aspect of running effective social media campaigns and it’s important to understand their use and value.

Take the time to identify tools that will be needed for scheduling, engagement, statistical reporting and analysis, and written or video content creation. Once you have identified your optimum ‘tool kit,’ be sure you understand how each one works and how to use your analytical process to track each tool’s success.

Research the Target Audience

A target audience is not always the same as your current audience. In some cases, a business is looking to expand their reach which means targeting the ideal audience for specific products or services. 

Before social media marketing can take place, a deep dive into this target audience needs to take place. Along with the basics, such as age, income, or location, make sure to understand the solutions or information they are looking for from your business, including what products and services you offer that match their needs. 

Remember, you will want to craft your content strategy to answer your target audience’s pressing questions to gain their trust and create a strong relationship.

Analyze Social Media Channels

There are numerous social media channels which can be effectively used to reach consumers such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Medium.com, YouTube, or Pinterest. 

The most important aspect of selecting which channels to focus on has to do with potential customer activity. There is little value in spending time and energy on a platform that your potential customers either don’t use or use infrequently. 

Take the time to analyze and understand when and where your customers are socially active and then focus your social media best practices on those times and places to intersect with them.

Create a Sense of Urgency and Anticipation…on a Schedule

Ideally, you want your target audience to eagerly await your next post. 

Impactful and engaging content needs to be regularly provided to your audience if you what to create higher levels of involvement and connection, as well as more conversions. Without regular useful or engaging posts, people will look elsewhere for what they want or need. Instead, you want people looking forward to your next post.

A regular schedule of quality, high-level, actionable content makes it easier for people to know when to expect posts and it provides consistency they can count on.

Focus on Multiple Social Media Platforms

Whatever content you are going to provide should add value for your customers. Useful information, problem-solving content, or promotional offers are all useful content and utilizing a cross-posting strategy allows you to get the maximum value from each post.

As an example, you can create a YouTube video on a thought leadership subject, then create a transcript that can be used as a post on Facebook, Medium.com, or LinkedIn. From there, you can use still images from the video to post on Pinterest and Instagram linking back to the video and the transcript posts.

With a multiple platform strategy, you can create efficiency and reach more people at the same time.

Make Responding to User-Generated Content a Priority

It’s good to post great content, but you need to also engage users who take the time to reach out to you — good or bad. Users may leave comments or reviews (about your content or about your product or services) on your site or on other sites like Yelp or Google. 

Taking the time to respond to those comments goes a long way in establishing rapport and building trust with potential or existing customers.

And remember, social media platforms have become fertile grounds for customer complaints. People have no problem posting or tweeting about bad service or problems. That’s why businesses need to monitor not only their social media sites but also listen for mentions of their business on all platforms. 

How you handle these difficult conversations is being watched by users across the internet and industry leading companies know just how important a graceful response can be — just ask Nike, Spotify and Starbucks.

Analyze, Analyze, Analyze

Analyze and review metrics monthly. Important metrics such as likes, comments, clicks, shares, and follow count should be analyzed and reviewed monthly. It helps you keep up to date on social media trends and ensures a solid engagement rate.

Things change quickly in this new environment. If something isn’t working, you can redeploy your social media marketing resources quickly without losing too much ground. It also informs an understanding of what works well and what type of ROI you can hope to continually recreate.

The Bottom Line

The bottom line is that following the best practices for any business process is always a great idea. This should always be a starting point for any business, especially in digital marketing and the ever-changing world of social media. 

Once baselines have been established using our essential list of best practices for social media marketing, then adjustments and tweaks can be applied to optimize your business’s interactions with clients.

As a business owner, you may want to engage a team of professional social media marketers to help you create a strategy as well as to schedule posts, create content, and follow user engagement. Lounge Lizard has successfully managed social media marketing services for multiple companies and is available to discuss how we can help you!

Be sure to check back every week for great new Lounge Lizard blog articles.