Social media has become one of the most powerful methods of developing brand awareness and identity by connecting with a broad range of users. Not to mention being a great way to promote sales and drive the kind of conversion rates that elevate your success.

Though it’s not enough for your small business to simply have a presence on one or two social media platforms. You can’t just show up, let it ride, and expect success. You need to cross every “T” and dot every “I” to make sure you are making the most out of all your social media efforts.

This calls for tapping into the following ultimate social media checklist. These are some of the best ways to improve impressions and get more reach for your desired channels. Tips on how to improve your social media strategy include:

Clearly Define Your Goals In The Short & Long Term

Take the time to define what your goals are now, in the near-short-term and what you want them to be in the long term. This might mean defining metrics that you will touch base with weekly, monthly, or annually.

It might be something as simple as getting 200 new followers by the end of the fiscal quarter. It might be to earn 300 new mentions by the end of the month. It could even be to get 2,000 people clicking that they are “Interested” or “Attending” a major event you are hosting.

Determine The Key Performance Indicator Tracking Method

Known in the digital marketing industry as KPIs, these performance indicators help you keep track of your success by setting up measurable milestones. If you fail to reach a realistically assessed milestone, you can go back and reassess what you can do to improve your performance. This lets your social media marketing strategy evolve with you.

Determine The Best Platforms

Different demographic user groups have different preferences toward certain platforms. They might even have different preferences within a single platform. The last thing you want to do is waste precious time on building campaigns for platforms that are ineffective for reaching your key targeted demographic groups.

Clearly Define Your Visuals & Voice

They say that “Content Is King” and that means you need to create social media content that stands out and pair it with complementary visuals. At the same time, you need to make sure that your content is speaking the language of your targeted demographic. All while also being in line with your brand and making sure that your content subscribes to a tone of voice that is fitting for your targeted demographic audience.

We can help with your branding.

Optimize Your Company Profile on All Active Social Media Platforms

The most effective social media platforms have some type of profile that you can use to tell users what you are all about. You need to go to each platform on your social media strategy and input that information in detail. This will go a long way toward creating the kind of connections that drive success in social media marketing.

Determine Content Pillars

Strong content pillars (also called “content buckets”) are essential to any decent social media strategy. Think of them as legs on a dining table—too few, and it won’t be stable enough to support much, too many, and it isn’t entirely usable.A brand’s content pillars should consist of a small handful of themes and/or topics relevant to the business and its potential followers. These will be what all posts should be based on.

Create Engaging Content

Social media users hunger for fresh, fun, and engaging content—though you don’t necessarily want to give them too much at once. Many small businesses find it easier to create a bank of “evergreen” content using predetermined content pillars. Then they draw from this bank at regularly timed intervals to provide digestible bites to their followers.

Develop & Use A Content Calendar

By developing and using a content calendar, you can better manage the content bank you created earlier in the process. This also ensures that you aren’t accidentally repeating the same material too often, which could get you or your posts flagged for being unoriginal.An ideal calendar will utilize the 80/20 principle—or the best version of it found for your brand after some testing—and the honed content pillars mentioned before.

Create A List of Hashtags

Hashtags can be a driving and connecting force in the world of social media marketing. By creating a list of popular hashtags and using them strategically you increase the chances of interested users finding you. It also helps to boost your connections with diverse demographic groups.

Post On Social Media When Your Target Audience Is Most Active

Different demographic groups tend to be active at different times. Office workers might be more active on social media around their lunch hour, whereas students might be more active on social media in the evening hours. By timing when you post your social media messages, you increase the chances of your targeted demographic seeing and rapidly responding to them.

Recruit Experts & Influencers

Industry experts, influencers, and well-known personalities come with their own large, existing networks that you can leverage to build your own following. When you recruit and collaborate with these high-visibility entities it boosts your viewership. The backlinks these connections tend to make can also boost your domain authority with popular search engines like Google.

Cross Connect Content Across Different Platforms

If you’re going to use the same content on different platforms, be sure to make adjustments to fit with where it’s going. You’ll want to be mindful of factors like demographics, cadence, hashtag usage, and formatting. And remember, not every post is going to be right for every platform.

Just be mindful of the demographics that each piece of content is trying to speak to, compared to the primary demographic audience attracted to a specific platform.

Monitor Your Brand’s Mentions On All Platforms

You want your social media manager and other key digital marketing personnel to keep close tabs on how people are mentioning your company and your content across all your active social media platforms. This will also help you get a good sense of where your online reputation is and what customers think of your brand.

Social listening is tracking social media platforms for mentions and conversations related to your brand, then analyzing them for insights to discover opportunities to act. Here are the steps:

  • Monitor social media channels for mentions of your brand, competitors, products, and keywords related to your business.
  • Analyze the information to take calculated action. That can be something as small as responding to a happy customer or something as big as shifting your entire brand positioning.

Post Timely Replies to Comments & Direct Messages

Any questions or comments on your social media platforms need to be responded to promptly. This includes whether they are positive or negative. Your community management shows a dedication to customer feedback and a willingness to improve that will bolster your reputation on social media over time.

Encourage Followers to Create User-Generated Content

Followers who develop a passion for your brand are often happy to jump at the opportunity to contribute their voice to your social media presence. This also helps boost the activity of prospective customers who want to see open signs of engagement. This term is also known as UGC for short.

Keep Track Of Your Competitor’s Successful Strategies

If your competitors are having significant success on social media or other avenues that are getting talked about on social media, take the time to analyze and figure out why. Then do your best to mimic what is boosting their success while remaining authentic and fresh.

Track Your Competitor’s Weaknesses & Failures

On the other side of the coin, track your competitor’s failures and weaknesses on social media and avenues that are talked about on social media. Try to learn from their mistakes, and avoid them in your own strategies.

Though be careful not to overly point out their failures on your own social media platforms. This is often seen as bad form by many users, and it might ultimately end up hurting your own reputation in the long run.

Track Follower Growth & Engagement

Tracking your number of followers and their engagement is a very helpful metric when it comes to refining your social media marketing efforts. If you find that your social media manager is posting with regularity, yet you notice a sudden drop in your followers you likely have a problem with your published content.

Be Prepared To Review Results & Adjust Your Strategy

Tap into your KPIs and other key metrics to stay informed about any necessary changes you need to make in your social media marketing strategy. Having the courage to pivot and/or make changes if something isn’t working can help refine your strategy while increasing engagement and followers.

All of these tips are intended to get your business more impressions and increase your reach to as many potential customers or consumers as possible. These are the tried and true ways on how to get social media results.