10 ways to instantly upgrade your social media posts

The world of social media can feel daunting, especially for small businesses who are only just beginning to navigate it’s complexities. Between the various platforms, types of posts and big brands out there creating amazing social content, it’s hard to even know if you’re headed in the right direction.

But have no fear; here are ten easy ways to supercharge your social content without reinventing the wheel:

1. Ask and ye shall receive

As simple as it sounds, the easiest way to get someone to talk on your social pages is to ask them a direct question.

It’s a well-trod path, which gives you a variety of options to use, including the ever-popular quizzes and polls, versus posts where users have to choose between two things they love (i.e. Nutella or Vegemite?) and even something as simple as: “Summer’s here! What are you doing to celebrate?”

In the end, social media is all about audience interaction and engagement, and asking your audience for that interaction is the easiest way to get it.

2. Respond to your followers

Social media present a plethora of opportunities for getting to know your followers, and they’ll be far more likely to engage with you if they know you’re actually going to answer back. Not every brand has the time to do this (or do it properly), so this is an easy thing you can do to stand out and show that extra level of care for your audience.

If you build a strong relationship with your audience, it’s that much more likely you’ll have a viral piece of content on your hands, like this now famous Woolworths Facebook reply to one of their followers’ posts.

3. Engage with other brands

On the topic of engaging with others, mentioning and interacting with brands in similar or tangential industries is another great strategy for enhancing your social content.

In charge of a flower shop? Tell your audience which brand of chocolate goes best for a romantic gift and tag the brand in your post.

Even if the other brand never interacts back, you’ll have a chance at reaching their audience, which is probably within your target audience.

4. Post when your audience is around

Most social media platforms provide analytics tools for brand pages, like Facebook Insights. Using these, you can see when the majority of your audience is online.

If you make sure to post around those times, you greatly improve the chances they’ll engage with your content, and they’re less likely to miss your posts.

5. Get trendy

Speaking of timing, posts about trending news, trending topics and using hashtags is another way to optimise your content.

This can be as simple as anything from popular holidays like Christmas to events like National Pizza Day or other events happening in your state. Try and get in the mindset of your audience and think about what’s important and relevant to them (when it’s also relevant to your brand).

6. Use the optimum post frequency

Algorithms on sites like Facebook will punish you if you don’t post enough, but will dilute your content if you post too much. While engagement drops off after the first post of the day, try to hit the sweet spot of 2 posts per day. Some studies suggest as many as 3-5 posts per day, but 5 is probably a bit excessive and, after all, it’s better that you aren’t posting just for the sake of posting unless you have something relevant to say. 2 posts a day means that you’re much more likely to be a constant presence on your followers’ newsfeeds. Bigger brands can get away with only one post per day, as they are more likely to appear on user’s feeds.

For Twitter, it’s recommended that you post about 3-5 tweets per day in order to be seen at least once. For Instagram, most major brands post at least 1-2 times per day, and don’t see a drop in engagement for additional posts.

On Pinterest however, it’s best to post pins at least 5 times a day, or more. The more you can pin, the better.

7. Use visuals

With the rise of almost ubiquitous access to high-speed internet, visual content is now not just something that’s good to have, it objectively performs much better than any text-based messaging.

So whether it’s infographics, a series of images that tell a story, or even something as basic as a product shot, images are the key to unlocking social media engagement for your brand.

8. Use native video

On the topic of visual content, video has also seen a sharp rise over the last few years. Unlike images, the content is harder to produce, as poor quality becomes very easy to spot, but if you can make a good piece of video content, then it’s much more likely to perform better than an image post or linked post.

Be sure to always use each platform’s native-hosted video. Both Facebook and Twitter now have dedicated video platforms, and their algorithms prefer content uploaded there, rather than a link to a YouTube page.

9. Recycle your high value posts

They say lightning doesn’t strike the same place twice, but science has debunked that. It does.

And the same applies to social media strategy. If one of your previous posts drove a high level of engagement, it’s no crime to use it again later down the road. It can always be re-purposed and rephrased to make it relevant now, as long as you’re not posting the same thing every week.

10. Use a call to action

As easy as it sounds, putting messages like “Shop Now” or “Find Out More” on Facebook, both on your brand pages and on your posts will go a long way to guiding your followers to the products and services you want them to find. Make sure you’re getting the most out of your CTAs.

So there you have it. It’s not rocket science, (though it will require patience and perseverance). By taking these ten easy steps you can upgrade your social content. The world of social awaits!