7 Super Strategies to Boost Your Social Media Posts

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Do you want enticing, memorable social media posts? How’s about awesome engagement strategies based upon your audience’s deepest desires?

Today’s Facebook gurus have great content, awesome imagery and relevant links. Your social media marketing campaign, right now, can’t fuel itself. With a little elbow grease, though, you can make it happen.

Facebook, Twitter, Google+, LinkedIn and Instagram are extensive platforms, and each offers great social media marketing opportunities. To capitalize on your connections, however, you’ll need to engage users organically.

Check out our seven tips to dig into your social media posting strategy, and learn to strategize your content for maximum success.

Tip One: Optimize Your Visuals

First, you should strategize your visual game. In 2017, 74% of social media marketers are using visual assets to succeed.

This isn’t surprising, either, as Instagram is a common accessory to Facebook—who owns it. That said, you’re better off packing in visual media before your social media followers click to Instagram.

Why? Because modern Facebook and Twitter users are getting overloaded with cross-channel marketing strategies. You’ll still use these strategies, but you shouldn’t rely on them. First, make the following visual additions to your social media content:

Use tall images on Pinterest (735×1102)
Use wide images on Twitter, LinkedIn and Google+ (1200×628)
Link content to Facebook photos
Create conversations through captions

For your convenience, these social media image templates are perfect for quick and effective visual creation.

Tip Two: Compel Users with Deals

The name of the game is action. Anyone can market on Facebook, but few can promote business link clicks, SMS campaign sign-ups and reviews.

Fortunately, you have a few accessible tools. Facebook, in particular, offers brands great call-to-action tools.

Post valuable content, and use one of the three prompts to drive users to action:

“Click this”
“Watch this”
“What do you think?”

There’s a reason these prompts are short.

Again, today’s social media lovers are burnt out. They know the game. They also want instant gratification.

They’re cool with your social media marketing strategy, but they’ll get bored if you don’t offer a quick, concise call-to-action. More important to the CTA itself, however, is what the consumer will gain from such a response.

No, we’re not talking newsletter access.

We’re talking mobile coupons, short-code discount options, email promotions and on-location benefits. Your Twitter users, in particular, will be driven to action by quick-access deals.

Tip Three: Compel Users with Emotions

Next, you should round out your strategy by evoking emotion.

Yes, emotion.

Today’s Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn users can be a cynical bunch. They’re going to overlook shallow, run-of-the-mill marketing campaigns.

For this reason, you’ll need to stick out, emotion-wise.

Today’s biggest social media marketing segment—Millennials—are driven by ideologies of change, innovation and, above all else, happiness.

In fact, Buffer Social pinpoints happiness as the biggest—if not the best—emotional driver. In its analysis of the IPA dataBANK, which is a collection of over 1,400 successful advertisement case studies, it found that purely emotional content succeeded about twice as often as non-emotional content.

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Roughly 31% of social media users respond to emotional content, giving you, the marketer, a leg up.

Remember, however, to compel with positivity. Build your brand upon a firm foundation of happiness. Don’t plant it in infertile, rock-bottom grounds.

Tip Four: Get Creative with Videos

Next, you should focus on YouTube links. Again, Instagram and Facebook content, at this point, is synonymous.

As the social media world becomes increasingly homogenous, several platforms are becoming, essentially, the same. They still have unique cultures, but some are beginning to have more cross-over.

No, you shouldn’t neglect your cross-channel marketing efforts. They’re still incredibly useful. You should, however, prioritize your social channels.

Post YouTube videos based upon leading trends. If you don’t know which trends are trending, invest in a marketing analytics software package. Google AdWords can’t hurt, either.

Basically, you should be directing your content based upon relevancy.

As a general rule: Use news to fill in the gaps. A majority of United States adults (about 62%) rely on social media as a primary news resource, reports Pew Research Center.

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Another 49% report reading news in social media. If you can post newsworthy videos, do so.

Don’t, however, fall into the trap of sensationalism. Yes, politics are important—but they’ll absolutely slay your social media marketing strategy gets off the ground.

Stay away from social issues, too, unless you can promote with one of the following “ever-positive” topics:

Environmental conservation
Animal safety
Health and wellness

These subjects can tap into highly positive emotional connections to your users and pay off big time when done right.

Tip Five: Prompt Likes, Retweets and Shares

Now we’re getting somewhere. A super powered social media post has plenty of shares. It’s highly visible, and plenty of people comment on it.

To achieve this high visibility, however, you’ll need to post relevant content, promote conversation and offer incentives.

Yet again, you’ll need to sidestep a few age-old social media marketing paradigms. It isn’t enough to simply say, “Reshare this.”

Every day, Facebook and Twitter users are bombarded with similar cries for attention. Instead, you should use the following tactics:

On Facebook, have users vote with different emoji clicks.
On Instagram, have users tag someone who might appreciate the post.
On Twitter, ask for opinion.

These tactics aren’t exclusive to their respective platforms, either. In general, however, Twitter seems to be the best location for short-form discussion.

Facebook should be your platform for media shares, votes, and in-depth conversations.

Instagram, of course, is the home of hashtags and popularity—so use it wisely.

Tip Six: Mention People

Social media is popular for a reason. It brings people together, links celebrities to fans and connects brands to their most dedicated followers.

By mentioning people via tags, you can amplify your social media post’s message.

In social media marketing, success, often, is derived from who you know—rather than what you know. It’s a numbers game.

If you can target the centerfold of your audience’s attraction, you’ll win.Click To Tweet

Consider the following people to be valuable connections, and tag them whenever possible:

Celebrities
YouTube channel stars
Cultural icons
Charity organizations

It’s better to mention people, rather than groups. Often, a group entity is less likely to respond—as it’s governed by a PR professional who strictly likes, reshares and maintains specific content.

Again, invoke emotion. If you’re trying to market on social media, you’ll need to connect to your industry’s biggest influencers—not its controversial figures.

Tip Seven: Ask Questions, Get Responses and Test

You might’ve heard it before: Successful businesses are built on feedback. Whether you’re an entrepreneur, a musician, a small business owner or an app developer, conversation is key.

In 2017, brands are glossing over the _social _part of social media. They simply have poor online PR. Don’t fall into the trend of big data reliance, because the counterculture of mass information gathering is right around the corner.

Listen to your audience, use their feedback to drive new ideas, test those ideas and then repeat the process over and over again.

That’s how you win at social media.