23 Tips For Social Media Marketing

Social media is a dynamic and ever-changing landscape. With constant algorithm updates, evolving consumer behavior, and foundational changes to social best practices, it can be challenging to keep up. As the social expert at your company, it’s crucial to stay well-versed in the latest best practices to maximize your social channels. In this article, we’ve compiled a list of 23 social media best practices for 2023 to help you get ahead in your social media marketing efforts.

1. Aspire for Authenticity

Today’s consumers value authenticity more than ever. Instead of polished and stylized content, they prefer content that is genuine and unfiltered. The rise of platforms like BeReal in 2022 demonstrated the appeal of scrappy, lo-fi content, especially among younger audiences.

To apply this best practice, audit your brand’s authenticity by asking yourself the following questions:

• Does our brand deliver what we promise on social media?
• Is our content true to the values we claim to uphold?
• Are we serving the needs of our customers and community?

2. Research Your Ideal Customer

Understanding your ideal customer is key to reaching and engaging the right audience on social media. Start by analyzing the characteristics of your current followers and those who engage with your content. Consider factors such as age, location, language, and hobbies.

Compare these findings with your company’s definition of the ideal customer. Identify any gaps and adjust your social strategy to bridge them.

3. Use Your Community’s Favorite Networks

Once you have a clear understanding of your target audience, focus on building your presence on the social media platforms they use most. Use social media demographic data to identify the networks that matter to your community. Stay updated on emerging platforms and trends to ensure you’re reaching your audience where they are.

4. Keep Your Audience at the Forefront

Rather than making your brand the hero of your story, focus on building emotional connections with your audience. Listen to their thoughts, feelings, opinions, and experiences related to your brand, products, industry, and competitors. Use social listening tools to track conversations and extract insights that help you empathize with their challenges and provide meaningful solutions.

5. Post at the Right Time

Finding the best time to publish your social media content can significantly impact engagement. Consult resources like Sprout Social’s guide to the best times to post or analyze your own data to pinpoint the optimal posting times for your brand.

6. Post Regularly

Consistency is key in social media marketing. Maintaining a regular posting cadence positively impacts business goals, according to 81% of surveyed marketers. However, it’s essential to strike a balance between reaching your audience and overwhelming them. The sweet spot for brand posts is generally one to two posts per day, but it may vary depending on the platform and algorithm.

7. Reduce Your Response Time

Quick response times are crucial for providing excellent customer service on social media. More than three-quarters of consumers expect responses from brands within 24 hours. However, brand response rates have been declining in recent years, emphasizing the need to speed up response times.

Audit your current response time average, leverage customer service chatbots for 24/7 coverage, simplify your processes to eliminate customer friction, and establish clear lines of responsibility for complex customer needs.

8. Up-level Your Customer Care

Strong customer care practices are essential in today’s competitive landscape. Consumers compare brands’ support practices and are more likely to share negative experiences, abandon purchases, or switch to a competitor if their customer care needs are not met.

Invest in social customer service tools that provide a 360-degree view of your brand’s interactions with customers. Create separate handles for customer care and use sophisticated social customer service tools to enhance your customer care strategy.

9. Go for Engagement

Create engaging social media content that resonates with your audience. Short-form videos, images, and live videos are among the most engaging content types. Focus on developing a successful video marketing strategy, repurpose videos into other engaging content types, and experiment with different formats to maximize engagement.

10. Take Video Seriously

Video content has become increasingly popular, and brands should prioritize video production to meet consumers’ growing appetite. Consider dedicating full-time resources to video production, whether by growing your team, combining internal resources, or outsourcing video production needs.

Create a solid video plan, secure budget and buy-in, and explore social media video content ideas to get started.

11. Highlight Your Product in Action

Demonstrate how your product or service empowers your target customers to overcome their challenges. While showcasing your product or service, ensure that it doesn’t overshadow the pain points and needs of your audience. Focus on providing solutions and demonstrating real-world use cases.

12. Showcase Real Testimonials and Demos

Authenticity is crucial in social media marketing. Instead of relying solely on catchy slogans and marketing spin, showcase real customer testimonials and product demonstrations. This approach builds trust and credibility among your audience.

13. Infuse Your Content with Personality

Humanize your brand by infusing your content with personality. Consumers prefer relatable and personable communication styles. Ditch overly polished and robotic content in favor of a more authentic and relatable approach.

14. Take a Stand

Taking a stand on sensitive issues that align with your values can resonate with your audience. Consumers value brands that take a stand on sensitive issues, and company alignment with personal values has become increasingly important. However, it’s essential to back up your social activism with concrete actions and support the causes you speak out about.

15. Partner with Creators

Collaborating with content creators is an effective way to generate engagement and reach new audiences. As the creator economy continues to grow, brands should allocate a significant portion of their social budget to working with content creators. Look for creators who inspire communities and share interests or identities with your target audience.

16. Tap into Employees

Leverage your employees as brand advocates on social media. Employees can amplify your content, humanize your brand, and engage your audience. Create an employee advocacy program and provide your employees with curated content to share. Showcase your employees through a “meet the team” series to drive brand affinity.

17. Experiment with Emerging Tech

Embrace emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) to enhance your social media marketing efforts. Many marketers have already integrated AI tools into their workflows and have seen positive results, including increased productivity and faster content curation. Research the potential of AI in marketing and experiment with emerging technologies to stay ahead.

18. Test New Platforms

Stay open to testing new social media platforms that align with your audience’s preferences. The platforms that have worked for your brand in the past may not be the same ones that will carry you into the future. Test and learn before fully committing to a new platform, and focus on joining networks that your audience is likely to use.

19. Iron Out Your Approval Process

Ensure that your approval process is optimized for the fast-paced nature of social media. Create a streamlined workflow for your team and cross-collaborators to avoid delays in publishing content. Consider using a social collaboration tool like Sprout Social to formalize and streamline your approval process.

20. Optimize for Social Commerce

Social shopping is on the rise, and optimizing your social commerce tools is essential to capitalize on this growing trend. Streamline the in-platform shopping experience, reduce the number of steps in the checkout process, and integrate your social and commerce workflows to enhance the omnichannel customer experience.

21. Prove the Value of Social

To secure resources and buy-in for your social media efforts, it’s crucial to measure and quantify the value social brings to the company. Translate social media metrics into executive-ready reports that highlight the impact of social on company goals. Calculate ROI, website traffic, brand awareness, engagement, lead generation, and customer retention gains attributed to social media.

22. Bring Social Data to Your Entire Business

Social media insights can benefit various departments within your organization. Share reports and findings with teams beyond the social media team to help them improve their output and achieve their goals. Break down silos and misconceptions to create a more collaborative and integrated approach to social media across the organization.

23. Invest in Social

Investing in social media marketing is crucial for long-term success. As executives increasingly recognize the importance of social media, companies are expected to increase their social media marketing budgets. Make a case for more resources and team members, bridge the gap between social and the rest of the organization, and demonstrate the impact of social on business objectives.

In conclusion, social media marketing best practices are ever-evolving. By staying up to date with the latest trends, experimenting with new technologies and platforms, and focusing on audience engagement and authenticity, you can maximize the impact of your social media efforts in 2023 and beyond.