The ultimate guide to social media – Social media day 2019

Did you know that 58% of the world’s population uses social media? That makes up a total of 3.484 billion people – an audience not to be missed. If you’re not currently using a business page on social media, you might want to find out exactly what you should be avoiding here before reading our ultimate guide to social media.
When we’re in the planning stages with our clients, it’s often misunderstood that Facebook is the key to social media success because it has the most daily active users, but this isn’t the case for all brands, sectors and companies.
If your market isn’t on Facebook then you could lack attraction to your page, and if your audience isn’t using Facebook for business purposes then you could lack interaction on your posts. We suggest testing the waters first and making sure a page is worth your resource, before building it up with quality content.
Putting a social media policy in place, particularly if you are a large organisation, can help to keep a firm grip on your branding message. Encourage members of staff to develop a personal brand on social media to strengthen this message, with strict guidelines to be adhered to within the policy to help mitigate damage to your brand’s reputation.
When creating content for social media, it’s important to develop and maintain a ‘voice’ on each. Where you might find formal content on LinkedIn, you might find informal content on Instagram. If you’re struggling to find content that is relevant and engaging to your audience, check out our hashtag blog with content inspiration for every single day of the week.
Whilst operating a social media account is free, aside from your time, should you be also be using paid-for-advertising? Absolutely – not only does social media advertising target a specific audience at low cost, it can help gather market insights to plan for future campaigns away from social media.
When operating social media business accounts, the most important thing to consider is keeping on top of trends, and utilising new resources. There have been a few changes across platforms over the last few months, including Twitter’s makeover, LinkedIn’s reactions, Facebook’s ever-changing page layouts and the death of Google+. How could you show your audience that you are on top of trends relevant to your market?
We hope our ultimate guide to social media has provided you with the answers you wanted. In honour of social media day 2019, we’ve pulled together our most handy links to help you become a social media expert. So if you are just getting started, dedicate some time to using these to help you get clued up on best practice.
Twitter flight school
Instagram Authority
HubSpot Academy
LinkedIn Learning
Facebook blueprint
Let us know how you get on or get in touch with us if you need some further help with your social media!