15 Social Media Marketing Tips You Might Have Forgotten

If digital marketing is a part of your daily work routine, then there is not a single doubt in my mind that a good portion of your day is spent reading. It might be a blog post on how to improve your email marketing strategy or an article on how to leverage Twitter to reach your marketing goals – whatever your choice of reading material is, you’re most likely trying to retain more information than your brain can process.

With that said, unless you’re a reincarnation of Albert Einstein with a superior social IQ, some of the useful information you’ve read has probably escaped your mind over time.

As a little “refresh”, I’ve come up with 15 useful social media marketing tips that might have slipped your mind for each of the following topics. I’ve created 5 each for Facebook, Twitter and Google+. And these are easy, so you can start using them right now!!

5 Facebook Tips to Remember

1. Try posting outside of business hours: 

We all have our favorite infographic or blog post that has all the stats on the best time of day to post on Facebook, but a study done by Yesmail stated that “campaigns deployed between 10 pm-12 am ET were an engagement goldmine. Based on volume, however, this timeslot was the least utilized for deployment.”

Marketing expert, Mari Smith suggests experimenting with posting in the early morning (4 am -7 am ET), late evenings (10 am – 12 am ET), and on the weekends. Be sure to mix and match your posting times to see what yields the highest engagement.

2. Post messages from satisfied customers: 

What better way to show that your product or service is amazing than from the mouth of a satisfied customer? We all know how useful Facebook can be in providing A+ customer service, but be sure not to forget how useful it is in showing how great your customer service is. My favorite online candle shop, Candles By Victoria, provides a great example of this on their Facebook page.

3. Ask what your fans want to see next:

The goal of any business is to have satisfied customers. We spend time bettering our products and/or services in order to achieve this goal. If you have engaged fans, then Facebook is a great place to ask what they want to see next.

4. Make sure you’re easily found via mobile search: 

According to Balihoo, 91% of local searches say they use Facebook to find local businesses online. Another study by Google reports that 95% of smartphone users have searched for local info. Hopefully these stats make it clear how important it is to be visible and easily found on Facebook. Luckily, this is very easy. The first step is to make sure all of your address is correct (Admin Panel > Edit Page> Update Info>Address). The second step is to be sure the correct category is selected (Edit Page>Update Info> choose appropriate category). Do those two steps, and you’ll be well on your way.

5. Take advantage of Facebook tabs: 

Every Facebook page is set up with a standard set up tabs, including your Wall, Photos, and Likes. What a lot of people don’t know, is that you are able to add and customize additional tabs. For example, Coca Cola’s Facebook page has a “Your Stories” tab, where their fans post artistic pictures of Coca Cola bottles. Coming up with a creative use of tabs that promotes engagement can be a really useful addition to your Facebook marketing strategy.

5 Twitter Tips to Use Every Day!!

1. Make use of the track feature: 

Using TweetDeck or Hootsuite (or other publishing tools), follow these steps:

1. add a new column
2. select the “search” option
3. type in the keywords you would like to track
4. then select add column.

Once you’ve completed these steps, any tweet containing the word or phrase you selected will show up in the column you’ve created.

The benefit of tracking keywords or phrases, is that it allows you to find leads via Twitter. For example: if you are a company that offers a competitive intelligence tool, you might consider tracking the phrase “competitive intelligence tool”. Then, if someone Tweets asking for suggestions on the best competitive intelligence tool, you can jump in and suggest your product (and possibly offer a complimentary trial).

Additionally, tracking keywords is a great way to stay current on the buzz that surrounds your space.

2. Never type in all caps:

While this might seem like common sense (because everyone knows how annoying caps lock is), somehow there are still a ton of people tweeting in all caps.

To be honest, I completely skip over Tweets THAT LOOK LIKE THIS – and chances are so do a lot of others. With that said, my advice for those who want to be seen on Twitter is to give your caps lock key a little break. If you’ve somehow forgotten that this practice is extremely annoying, here is a friendly reminder telling you that all caps is never appropriate and always obnoxious.

3. “Collaborate” with other Twitter users: 

By teaming up, you’re not only exposing your followers to new content, but are also building relationships with other Twitter users. And everyone knows that when you help others, others are more inclined to help you.

This Tweet from @wholefoods is a great example of this practice. On a side note, if you ever need ideas of ways to switch up your Twitter content, checking out @wholefoods is guaranteed to get your creative juices flowing.

4. Include your Twitter handle on your email signature: 

Again, this is one that sounds like common sense – yet I still get emails from marketing folks that fail to include their twitter handle.

The number of existing customers and potential customers you interact with via email is larger than you’d expect, so be sure to take advantage of this. A good rule of thumb: make sure your Twitter handle is as easy to find as your phone number.

5. Take advantage of Lead Generation Cards: 

You need to leverage Twitter Cards. The Lead Generation Card allows marketers to collect leads directly within the tweet. Hubspot explains: “Users don’t even have to fill out a form — their information (Name, email, and username) is already pulled into the card. They literally just have to hit “Submit” on the Card’s call-to-action.

The Lead Generation Card is exclusively available as a feature of Promoted Tweets (a paid feature of Twitter Ads).

5 Google+ Tips to Touch Up On

1. Take advantage of communities: 

Communities are an untouched gold mine. Joining relevant communities, answering questions, and engaging in conversation, gives you an opportunity to become a thought leader in your space. If you provide value to the community members, they are likely to add you to their circles – and the more circles you are in, the more reach you have.

This becomes extremely valuable when you set out to post company blog content as more people will likely reshare it.

2. Format your posts: 

A really great feature on Google+ that is often overlooked is the ability to format your posts.

By adding strike throughs and bolding and italicizing text, you can really make your posts stand out from the crowd. Follow these commands to make your posts fabulous:

1. Use asterisks around your text to bold (*bold*).
2. Use underscores around your text to italicize (_italicize_).
3. Use hyphens around your text to strike through (-strike through-).

3. Share circles: 

Another useful networking tool is sharing circles. A user has the ability to select any of their circles and create a Shared Circle post. Anyone that views the post can select to add the shared circle to their own circles. You can imagine that this is one of the highest levels of flattery on Google+ — so by plus mentioning people in the Shared Circle, you instantly begin to build a relationship with them.

Unfortunately, shared circles have become a bit spammy overtime, so be sure to check out Virante’s tips on what to do and avoid (so you dodge the possibility of ticking someone off).

4. Use Ripples to thank people: 

If you’re unaware of what Ripples are, they essentially provide you with a visual of how a post spreads across Google+. While it’s amusing to track how a viral post goes viral on Google+, there is a much more actionable lesson to be learned from Ripples. Much like it’s polite to thank people for sharing on Twitter, it’s also good manners to thank people on Google+. Ripples allows you to track who has shared your post, and allows you to reach out and thank them. This reinforcement makes it more likely that they will share your posts in the future.

5. Stay up to date on what’s going on: 

Google+ is frequently shipping new features and changing the layout. This can be very frustrating if you don’t learn of changes ahead of time. What I suggest is visiting the Google+ Tips and Tricks page to make sure you are up to date on what’s going on with Google+. This way when new features are set to come out, you can begin to brainstorm how you can best leverage them for your G+ marketing strategy.

Stay Up to Date & Rock Your Social Media Marketing

Social media is always changing, so staying up to date on what’s going on is essential to a marketer’s success. However with all the reading, we’re bound to let some valuable information escape through the cracks. Hopefully this little refresh has been helpful and you’ve “relearned” some good tips (or simply learned some new ones). What are some marketing tips you feel are often forgotten?