If you’re looking to get insight into how different social media platforms work or grow your business’ social media marketing strategy, you’ve come to the right place!
In this post, we’re going to take you through everything you need to know to build a presence on these 6 social media networks:
YouTube
TikTok
This beginner’s guide will provide you with the steps necessary to build your digital marketing strategy by learning about the algorithms for each of the social media sites.
If you’ve ever wondered what goes on behind the likes, comments, and posts, this guide will answer those questions.
By the end, you’ll have the insight needed to build a smarter social media strategy to grow your business or brand.
But before we begin, let’s start with the basics and review key terms, how to get started with social media, and how to post.
Then, we’ll explain the difference between a B2B and B2C social media presence and which social media platforms are best for each. Let’s dive in!
Key Social Media Terms You Need To Know
Hashtags (#) serve as keywords and help create a community within any social media platform, connecting a large number of users together who share similar interests. For example, a popular hashtag is #trendingnow.
Likes show interest in post content which benefits users trying to gain a larger audience. Usually, you can double-tap a post, click on the heart shape, or thumbs up button to like the content.
Comments show further interest in a post because the user feels strongly enough to comment and strike up a conversation rather than simply liking the post.
As a business, you can get some really interesting feedback from comments. Overall, a user will learn a lot more from comments than likes.
Tags allow social media users to mention another user in a post or comment through a tagging icon. This further brings folks into the conversation and increases engagement for a post.
Engagement or Activity is the action of users on your social media page. These actions include liking, commenting, sharing, and reactions.
Impressions are the number of times users have viewed your profile or post.
A Story is a photo or video that is shared with users. Multiple photos and videos or both can be posted and each last 24 hours from when you shared it.
Pillar Content is/are the long-form piece(s) of content, such as an informative blog or video about a certain topic, that can be broken down into smaller content pieces. Typically social media is used to drive traffic to pillar content located on your website.
Micro Content is the short-form pieces of content posted on social media to bring awareness to the pillar content.
For example, if the pillar content is a blog post, a piece of micro-content could be an Instagram story showing an image related to the blog and a caption that links the viewer to the pillar content.
This way the micro-content brings the pillar content to the viewer in a faster, more informal way, leaving the viewer eager to read more.
How To Get Started With Social Media
There’s always a starting place when it comes to building your platform on social media. Here are a few key tips to help you get started on social media and give you a firm grasp of what you need to know before sharing your first post.
Study the competition.
Learning from others, especially in your industry, is a great way to reduce your learning curve.
Ask yourself, “what content are my competitors sharing on their social media?” See what content of theirs is receiving more activity and apply that to your posts with your twist.
Set goals for your social media account.
It’s important to leverage analytics and post when activity is at its highest, as well as to post content that your followers enjoy most. Using analytic tools native to each social media platform, such as Twitter Analytics if you’re trying to track metrics on your Twitter profile, is a great way to start. Once your following and brand grow, external analytic software and tools are a great way to gain more insight and details.
These goals should be attainable, detailed, fit your target audience, and competitive with others in your industry. Set small but substantial goals at first and then expand from there!
Create a social media plan and calendar.
This will not only help you to post when your target audience is most active but will also share the appropriate content to the right social media channels at the right time.
You can start with the rule of thirds: ⅓ to promote business, ⅓ to entertain your audience, and ⅓ to focus on influencers in your industry.
Or try the 80-20 rule: 80% of your content to educate your audience and 20% is to promote your brand.
Trying both is important to gain a sense of what works best for your platforms but eventually, you should make a set plan of what gets posted where what times, and how much content you’re producing.
Take inspiration from the success of others.
At Interrupt Media, we often look at the entrepreneur, Gary Vaynerchuk’s, successful social media content strategy to gain insight. Here’s one of our favorites from Gary.
Head to the business section of most social networks and you’ll find useful case studies.
It’s also a great idea to ask existing followers what they want to see more of, then give them exactly what they ask for.
Basic Rules Of Posting
You want to keep your audience engaged with the content you post, so it’s important to know when to post, how often to post, and what content to share.
You’ll also want to be careful not to over-do it on posting because there are also many disadvantages to posting too much.
Since every post is not going to be that significant to your audience, it’s important to post what you feel will be most relevant to them. If uninteresting content continuously gets posted, followers might divert their attention elsewhere, or worse, unfollow you altogether.
To help, we’ve compiled some basic guidelines that will help you know how often to post when to post, and how to craft a good post to keep your audience engaged.
