Right now, businesses need to be very strategic with their social media efforts if they want to get their message heard above all the noise on social platforms.

It’s my full time job to help dozens of businesses in a variety of sectors utilise social media, through content creation and organically growing their audiences. There are lots of little tips I often give to my clients and contacts, and I thought, why not collate them in my next blog post? So here we are… Read below for my best social media tips in 2022.

1. Schedule posts in advance

The biggest tip I give to businesses is to schedule posts in advance using a free tool. With Buffer, you can add up to 3 channels on a free account (e.g. your Facebook page, LinkedIn profile, and Instagram page). Use it to create posts for all of your pages which can be customised, and then you can set a day and time in the future for the post to be published.

It means you can spend a block of time each week or fortnight creating a batch of content, rather than sporadically putting a post up on your platforms every other day or so. You’ll find that your posts will be higher quality because you’ll be spending time thinking about your content, and you will save so much time by not thinking about what to post throughout the week.

2. Utilise your LinkedIn tagline

Your LinkedIn tagline appears in search results, invitation requests, and every time you create a post, leave a comment, or send a message. So it’s pretty much everywhere on LinkedIn.

Make sure it states not only exactly what you do, but how you add value. Too often, I see taglines which only say “Founder of X”. If you didn’t know me and saw my tagline was “Owner of Get Social with Grace”, would you understand exactly what I offer? Likely not.

The above shows my current tagline, which elaborates on what my business is about. I’ve also added in some emojis to make it stand out and give it some character. You may wish to do this too, although in some roles it may not be appropriate to do so.

3. Prioritise quality over quantity

“How often should I post?” is a question I’m frequently asked. It depends on your business, but generally a good consistency is 3 posts per week. This way, if you’re a B2B business posting Monday-Friday, you’re still having a constant presence to your followers.

By posting 5+ posts per week, you likely won’t achieve the level of quality that you need to in sharing posts that are engaging and well thought out. You can even begin with 2 posts per week if you struggle with creating content (click here for quick content ideas), because it’s much better to prioritise quality over quantity.

4. Key Instagram insights to look at

With the time it takes to create content, keep your profiles optimised, and respond to messages and comments… The last thing you want to add to your list is analysing every single post, particularly when each social media platform shows a huge range of different insights. It can be overwhelming.

However, there are two key insights which I recommend active Instagram users look at:

1. Your followers’ most active times of day. Click on Total Followers to see their demographics, which might be of interest to you. But if you scroll to the bottom, you can see their most active times of the day and days of the week. These are the times you should be sharing your content – when your audience are using Instagram the most.
2. Content you’ve shared. Go back to your Insights page, and under the ‘Content you’ve shared’ section, click ‘Posts’. Change the top right dropdown arrow to Last 6 months or Last year, and then you can see the order of the posts with the most Reach. You can change the middle dropdown arrow to the most Likes, and other metrics. So here you can see the order of your most popular posts. Is there a trend?

(Instagram Insights layout may have changed since writing this article in September 22)

5. How to run successful giveaways

A good way of boosting likes and engagement on your Facebook and/or Instagram pages is by running a competition. Provide a prize which is tangible such as a food hamper or gift vouchers. You could even collaborate with another local company who could promote the competition to their audience too.

Make the competition stand out with a snappy title. Then request that people like/follow your page, like and share the post, and tag 3 friends in the comments to enter. This will help the post spread. See below two examples of giveaways I have previously created for clients.

Always include a nice photo of the prize, and don’t let the competition run for longer than 2 weeks as it will lose momentum.

6. Don’t forget your competitors

Struggling with content ideas? Take a look at what other businesses similar to yours are putting out there. Now I’m not saying copy exactly what they’re doing… But looking at competitors’ channels and what they’re getting good engagement on can give you some really good inspiration and ideas.

Also check out the social media channels of the giants in your industry. For example if you’re a landscaper, you may be interested to know what the Society of Garden Designers are putting out there.

Conclusion

I hope you found some of my tips useful. In fact, feel free to let me know if you did find any of them particularly helpful!

I also provide 1-2-1 social media training sessions, which are completely bespoke to your business. We look at the platforms you should be using and how to utilise them effectively, a variety of content ideas that your audience will be interested in, and lots more hints and tips. Find out more here.