Social Media Marketing Week 9

Boost/Promoted Post

Content that has paid support. Boosted content is usually from your infeed where people see results, as opposed to dark listing ad units that do not appear on your organic page.

Best Practices - Facebook

- Facebook has a less restrictive character limit - in that, I do not believe that there actually is one. However, after 125 characters you see the (see more) - so put your most important copy/brand mentions at the upfront. - The cadence of your posting should be determined by the amount of content you have, historical data about user interactions, and feedback from audiences. A post a day may keep the doctor away. - Facebook is pay to play. And pay to win. Organic reach is on the decline as Fb becomes busier and more segmented to pages/communities. Understand the cost/benefit of investing into a robust content plan. - Always ensure that when writing copy you are thinking about the action you want your consumer to take. - Facebook actively discourages click-bait (like this to win, or copy that says leave a comment). - Don't bait and switch with your links. - Posts with large images are preferred by the system algorithms and are served to more people. - The same is true of video units. And, short video (under 3m) gets served to less people than long video. - Facebook has targeting options for both paid and organic - take advantage of this to optimize who is seeing your content. - As of 2020 - hashtags on Fb were all but useless. The system has changed and is trying to use them again to better connect audiences to content.

Effective Best Practices for Sharing on Social

- One size does not fit all. - What is good for the goose (one channel) is not necessarily good for the gander (your whole strategy.) - Respect the social network that you're using - and lean into the delivery mechanisms of that platform to tell a story that is authentic and most importantly resonant/meaningful. There are a general set of best practices that you should exercise whenever you are posting: - A strong headline and/or a caption is key. - We are visual creatures, video and images perform better. - Copy should have an emotionally evocative message while inspiring action. - Brainstorm a few variations (never get attached to your copy too much) - Vary your content - use a mix of engagement features unique to each platform (polls, questions, calls for UGC) - When sharing across different platforms, there are different ways to optimize how you will present it - Aim to end your posts with a clear call to action. - Look at the optimal posting times for your specific brand, industry, or the platform itself. - Remember that your content (while may be advertorial) should not feel advertorial. Remember the proportions of educational/entertaining to self-serving content. - Default human behaviour: sound off, develop content with this in mind. - Accessibility: make sure your content has closed captioning, descriptive audio, image descriptions.

Best Practices - Stories

- Slideshow style format in vein of Snapchat and have a 24h limit. - Do not appear infeed, and do not clutter your followers feeds. - Engagement on stories in incredibly high, and most viewed stories generally come from businesses. - Top performing content includes things like: - Behind the scenes (Chevrolet Auto Show) - How To (Install a Car Seat) - Lists (How to get kids to eat more fish) - Influencer takeovers (Recipe content for food brands) - Polls (Product battles) - Stories appear at the top of your feed - and are tapped through with your finger. - Stories give the ability to drive traffic. While converting may not be your ultimate objective with social content, always provide a link for your followers to swipe up to - so that they can learn more about whatever it is you're putting out into the world. - To place links in stories, must have 10k followers or be verified. - Max 4-6 stories in one sequence or a 24h period. Drop off from my experience is about 20% for each story. So, if you start with 1,000 on frame 1, you'd have 800 on frame 2, and 20% less of the 800 on frame 3 and so on. - Always place some sort of engage feature (swipe to like, ask a question, etc.) - You can upload premade content, take a picture, or create short looping content like a boomerang. - You can save the content prior to going live, recommended as content disappears within 24h. - Segments are 15s in length, can upload 1min max in length of pre-recorded content - or use the live function and the system will create the segments for you. - Live Stories - are the livestream feature - and takeover your stories button. - Can run up to 1h. Can save finished stream. - Can view insights to help guide future decision making. Great content live: - Concerts - Product reveals - Q and As - You can upload content in singles - or in bulk. Just look for the multiple upload tab. - Use highlight tabs to keep themes of stories organized and that keep your content around past the 24h limit. - You can promote your posts and your IGTV content to your stories - a great way to increase engagement on that content and boost it in algorithms. *IG TESTING REMOVING* - Make sure to review your story content, especially the sound. If quality is poor - remove the sound. If sound is required, consider putting the sound on tool. - Default human behaviour is to consume content with the sound off. - Because of this, and accessibility concerns - closed captions are a great way to pull people in and make sure that your content can be consumed by anyone with any ability.

Best Practices - LinkedIn Company

- The business oriented social platform, and as such the content you publish there should position your brand as an industry leader (regardless of your size.) - It is a great place to share industry insights, company specific news, and content that may serve your business objectives (especially if B2B.) - LI requires regular posting, organizations that post at least 1x a month gain followers 6x faster than those that don't. The recommendation is once per day, according to Hootsuite - as the magic spot. - LI users have a unique usage pattern (as do most platforms) - people use the platform when they have natural lulls in their day (before class/work, after, breaks, lunch, etc.) - Shorter copy performs best (avoid that see more button.) - Long copy should have bullet points (think about how business people consume data.) - Speak directly to your audience, i.e., "Hey Social Marketers" - Produce 'social cards' - an infographic that is contextual to the copy you have also created. Provide value to your audience at first glance. - Content can be upload or linked to. Content that is directly upload (i.e., a video) is served to more users in the algorithm than if you were to drive traffic externally. Why? LI and all social platforms want your eyes on their page for their advertisers. - Use LI targeted audience feature to best focus your post on those who it is most relevant/resonant with. - Employees engagement with content is near crucial to the success of it. LinkedIn is the business amplification hub. Getting the buy in of your employees to engage and share content is crucial for lift. - Hashtags aide in discoverability.

Best Practices - Instagram

- The leading platform for discovering new brands, experiences and trends. Algorithms prioritizes posts in particular ways: - Interest - Timeliness - How much a user interacts with similar posts and how fresh your content is. - Main takeaway - post relevant content, frequently. - 20% of your content should be promotional. 80% should tell your brand story. - Use carousel features to provide easter-egg content and avoid spamming your fans with a ton of content. - Captions are important - Short description - An open-ended question/engagement pull - Hashtags for discoverability - Keep questions relevant and specific. People are eager to share, just need to find what pulls it out of them.

Best Practices - Twitter

- Twitter's platform is probably the most restrictive when it comes to character limits. There is a 255 character limit per tweet. - Original tweets were 140 characters - the shorter the better. The easier for people to read quickly and understand. Try not to dilute your messaging. - When inserting a link, it will always use 25 characters regardless of length. But, using a shortened link is best practice for brands. - Use #'s to aide in discoverability/connectivity to community. - 120 characters indicated by Hootsuite as being ideal. - Twitter is less of a curated experience like FB/IG and as such is a good place to reuse/recycle content as some people may have missed. - If retweeting, always add your own perspective. - Images perform better than just text. - Videos perform 10x better than images. - Context and timing are key. Twitter, moreso than any of the other apps - is often where news breaks and trends begin. Look to the trending tabs to see how to join the conversation. - 6s/10s/15s best performing video lengths - 30s/1m for brand messaging

Trending Topic

A conversation around a topic that has reached critical mass and is being talked about by tens/hundreds of thousands.

Text Overlay

A text overlay provides the ability to superimpose one or more text elements over a video stream.

Link Shortener

A url provided by a service that truncates a long URL into a digestible version, ie Bitly.

Live Video

Each social network has a native analytics tool to help you evaluate the content on the social network. A broadcast service provided by social media sites - the live TV of social.

Social Video

Organic post reach is declining on most social networks for myriad reasons (i.e. need to make $, content clutter) so you need to strategically invest to boost/promote certain posts. A social video is a short-form video crafted specifically to drive engagement actions and captivate viewers on social networks.

Best Practices - Pinterest, TikTok, Snap

Pinterest: - The visual inspiration platform - Should always solve for a problem - Stick to one topic (problem) per board - Portrait (9:16) vertical performs best - Videos don't display well but high-resolution infographics do well - Descriptions should include keywords to help discoverability in search - Use rich pins - like product pins to convert to sales TikTok: - Be authentic. Don't overly brand/produce - Consider content your audience can relate to - Look to see what's working - Always use sound/music - Use hashtags #FYP Snapchat: - Half of all new users are 25+ - Ads can be purchased, but brands can use organic - Content viewable for 24h - Heavily dependent on an experience, may not be for every brand - Geo-filters and AR filters are great paid tools

Mention/Tag

The being '@d'. Also known as being tagged in content.

Description

The body copy of a paid advertisement unit, usually providing information about the offer or company.

Hashtag

The connective tissue of social media - aiding in discoverability. 'Channels' on social media platforms.

Character Length

The limits for text/emojis/etc. Different platforms have different limits and best practices.

Organic Post Reach

The natural reach of your non-paid efforts.

Audience Targeting

The selection of who will see your ad based on demographic/psychographic information.

Headline

Title displayed on a paid advertisement unit.

Post Content

While it's not a one size fits all for content on social networks, there are some general best practices to use wherever you post.