Did everyone leave the room?

We get it. It seems like every other day there is a new app update, feature, or function. Or you might think the Instagram algorithm is out to get you when suddenly you aren’t getting as many likes as you used to. With over:

1 billion+ active accounts on Instagram
2.27B active users on Facebook
Roughly 300M on LinkedIn and Twitter

Source: ShareKit via Social Media Today

Keeping up with social just isn’t what it used to be.

So what do you do? 80% of accounts follow businesses on Instagram alone, so promoting your business on social media is no longer optional. When done properly, social media is one of the most powerful digital marketing tools out there. Our best practice for determining how you invest your efforts is figuring out where your audience is (and how they’re using the platform) and then determining which platforms you are able to consistently manage.

Here are our tips and tricks to maintaining brand success in the current social climate.

Strategy

Content - Captions- Scheduling - Hashtags

Auto-posting saves lives! Shave off hours of thinking of what to post, when to post, and where to post it by planning and scheduling your content in advance.
Now, you can even schedule within Facebook’s Creator studio for both Instagram and Facebook.

The “what” to post depends on what your audience is doing while they’re on the platform. Are they looking for recipes, words of encouragement, foodie inspiration? Or maybe your followers want to learn cool new tricks and stay on top of insider news.

Decide what value you want to provide, listen to your followers, and determine what works best for you.

Winning Content

Feed Photos - Stories - Videos - Graphics - Reposts

Visuals will ALWAYS play a major role in maintaining your brand identity. You still need to bang out high-quality, consistent content that people stop to look at and simultaneously serves a purpose—photos, GIFs, graphics. Your feed is an extension of your brand and determines how you will be perceived by your audience and your industry.

Branding Opportunities for Social

Custom Graphics

Custom Animations

GIF Stickers

Stories Headers

**Having that Instagrammable moment within your business that reflects your brand and makes it easy for your followers to interact with you and want to tag you, which is free word-of-mouth marketing for your business.

Now, stories are how you capitalize off of engagement. These are best done planned AND on-the-fly too! They can be an extension of your feed posts or simply a casual way to pop in and touch base with your followers through q&a, polls, and keeping it fun with GIF stickers! (You may think stories are just for your followers, but did you know that you can add hashtags to your stories?)

Timing and Consistency

Quality- Tone - Messaging - Follower Activity

Catch your followers when they’re online. Makes sense, right? Instagram and many of the other platforms even provide you with the days and times your audience is active (there’s even more detailed times when you look on web versus the app). Knowing these times will help to drive engagement for optimal reach of your posts.

This next bit doubles for strategy too.

How often you post is something important to consider. Don’t just post because you feel like you HAVE to. This can lead to content that falls out of the scope of your brand..

The shelf life of a post has extended to about 1-2 days. Like we mentioned before, get to know your audience. Figure out the best schedule you AND your content can keep up with.

Reactivity

Likes - Bookmarks - Reach - Trends

Planning your content in advance to auto-post is the best way to go, but have you been checking on how your posts are doing?

React to post performance. shares, or any brand mentions.
Some posts shine more than others. Figure out why and do it over and over again (within reason).

Be flexible and ready to react to things going on in your industry.

Like Chick-fil-A, Wendy’s, and the rest of the gang when Popeyes’ chicken sandwich went viral, and most recently when they sold out of said chicken sandwich.

Stay up-to-date on what’s cool on the platforms you’re using.

Social changes fast. Keep up with not only industry trends, but creative trends as well.

And probably most importantly…

Engagement & Community

Likes - Comments - Answer questions

The word engagement gets thrown around in a lot of senses but its’ a real thing. And it all starts with your followers and building a community. That means you actually have to spend time on the app.

71% of consumers who had a positive experience with a brand on social media are likely to recommend the brand to friends & family.

Interact with your followers. Repost their content. Spread the likes. Answer questions. Accept feedback and offer a sense of humanity behind your brand.