Social media is a fantastic way for small business owners to connect with their target audience but trying to stand out in a sea of marketing messages can be a real challenge. Here are a few fun and simple tips for making your social media posts stand out.
Use images that enhance your posts
It’s surprising how often marketers will use images as an afterthought in their social posts, but that’s a huge mistake! The biggest platform where this happens is Twitter. Many people use Twitter as a scrolling newsfeed, giving their feed a cursory glance until something catches their eye. If you’re not using an intriguing image along with an attention-grabbing message, you’re likely going to be overlooked. Adding a simple image to your Twitter posts is easy, so take the time to slow down and add those images! Here’s a helpful tip: if you’re using a third-party social media tool like Hootsuite, it’s easy to review your scheduled tweets to see which ones are missing images. Take that extra step and enhance your tweets with images!
Embrace GIFs in social media posts
According to an article by Digital Marketer, images have been scientifically proven to improve social media engagement and animated images perform even better. You can pull some fantastic GIFs for your social posts from a variety of resources including Giphy, Tenor, and many more sites. Several, like Giphy, also allow you to create your own GIFs if you’re feeling creative. Just as with images, just be sure you’re using a GIF that actually relates to the content you’re sharing. You want to enhance your post with GIFs, not detract from the message.
Add videos to your social posts
Did you know that you can post videos to many of your social platforms, including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn? You can! The easiest way for most is to share a YouTube or Vimeo link, but some platforms prefer you to upload the video straight to the platform. Sprout Social shared a great article on social media video tips and strategies that you can use as a guideline for your different platforms.
Expand your content
Marketers have been trained to keep social messages short and sweet but really, that guideline is no longer a good one to follow. There are a few platforms that are conducive to longer content, with audiences seeking out more relevant, helpful information. LinkedIn is a perfect example of the ideal platform to embrace longer content. A B2B platform, your audience is likely business-minded and would be drawn to insightful information. Even Instagram users are seeking out longer content captions. As a matter of fact, the average length of Instagram captions has more than doubled since 2016.
Use interactive content in social media posts
The more successful social media presence is when you can get your audience to interact with you. Interactive content is a great way to make this happen! Interactive content gets input from your audience. Users aren’t passively consuming content. They become part of creating it. You’ve already seen interactive content like polls, quizzes, contests, and tests.
Leverage your user-generated content
User-generated content is any content that has been created, published, and/or submitted by users of a brand. It can consist of several different types of content, usually images, videos, social media posts, reviews, or testimonials. This is not typically paid content, but content users provide out of their own desire to promote the brand. User-generated content, or UGC for short, is ideal for social media! It promotes trust because the messaging is coming from someone other than you, which makes its credibility seem even more legitimate and sincere. User-generated content is a powerful way to elevate your social media presence.
Small business social media marketing can be time-consuming, so you want to be sure you’re getting the most out of your marketing efforts. These simple tips for making your social media posts stand out can help you get noticed by more prospective customers, which can lead to more revenue for your small business.
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