According to the annual report of We Are Social, 80.5% of French people are present on social networks (i.e. 52.1 million people) and use 5.7 social platforms every month. A good reason to use it! However, what are good practices?
choose your social network
Most of the time reality forces us to choose if we want to be present everywhere and on all social networks because being present on social networks takes time and energy. To be effective, focus on the social network you find most relevant to the one your ideal customer is on. The first question is therefore: on what network is your target present?
be active
If being ubiquitous on as many social networks as possible may be a laudable intention, know that you must first of all be active, which means that your posts have a certain regularity. Of course, you don’t need to post every hour, but know that you should do it at least once a week. Otherwise, your account will be quickly considered inactive and placed in another location.
have quality content
It’s not about posting anything on your social networks. Tailor your posts to your ideal customer. Some publish for themselves and forget that the interest lies in being able to address their customers or prospects. The more interesting and qualitative your content is, the more inclined they will be to interact and consult your publications. So it’s a question of trying to target your social network not for an advertising spot or to satisfy your ego, but to create enough content that they will want to share.
have an editorial calendar
It is certainly not necessary that the editorial calendar be in full. However, its construction allows you to ensure a certain regularity and set goals for yourself. Having an editorial calendar encourages you to specifically focus on your next publication or to ensure that you are regular enough. It can also be useful to give appointments to your fans. Ideally, each post should contain the information you need to build your content.
find the right time
Like setting up an editorial calendar, you need to look at the habits of each social network. Publications do not have the same effect depending on the time and day, and finding out about social network habits is far from superfluous. Of course, one hour is not when one should be active. It depends on your community, which may have specific habits and impose their own rhythms on you. Most social networks offer statistical tools that can guide you.
create interaction
If social networks are useful, it is also because they allow you to build links with people or even exchange with them. Even if this task is tedious and sometimes resources or time are insufficient, one should try to create dialogue on social networks as much as possible. Of course, this is not always possible, but you can at least, for example ask questions at the end of your publications or even organize specific moments of exchange or even go live. Ideally, you can make an effort to respond with empathy to comments as well as private messages, whether they are positive or negative.
Define an editorial line by social network
As far as possible, it is good to define an editorial line that suits each social network. Each social network has its own specialty and includes content that marks its originality. Thus some may be dedicated to getting to know behind the scenes of the company while others may serve you more to inform your potential customers. This information can of course be published on multiple accounts, but ideally, you should modify the text to best adapt the social network used. Attention ! A user is, in general, aware of the particularities of each social network and will not search for the same type of content on one social network and on another.
Schedule your posts in advance
If you don’t do it for regularity, you can at least do it for yourself. Scheduling your publications in advance saves you a lot of time and you don’t have to interrupt yourself with daily work to get it done. Many applications like Hootsuite allow you to deal with this without wasting time, so why deprive yourself of it? Nothing stops you from maintaining a certain spontaneity through stories, for example.
Take care of your page or profile
Gone are the days when companies used to indiscriminately submit photos and information to social media to be truly ubiquitous. Today a company must publish quality and it starts with an accurate description of your activity. Make sure to fill all the paragraphs and hence be accurate in your contact details and update them. We are in a world of visual recognition. As a result, the quality of photographs is essential, especially of leaders and managers. Forget how powerful your laptop is and ask professionals to cast your photos so they don’t appear as amateur photos. A profile evolves like a company, so be careful to update it regularly.
optimize your posts
In web writing, there are essential characteristics that can attract and retain the user’s attention. Among them, pay attention to readability, the length of your sentences, the presence of visuals, the fact of interpolating it with @, the presence of videos, respect for the dimensions for visuals and of course the optimization of the publishing program. Feel free to experiment and tweak it to see which formats work best.
Test your posts and ads
Not everything is free. The communications services know this very well. That is why they are always on the lookout for proper communication. Wanting to exclude paid advertising at all costs is a mistake you have to be careful of. Conversely, creating sponsored publications whose quality of writing, logic and visuals are an asset in convincing prospects. We must discard the received idea that sponsored publications are unattainable budget but on the other hand you have to determine your target and the media that you choose to avail. Don’t forget to observe your competitors’ publications and analyze them to do better than them.
know your audience
Before you start publishing, it is strongly recommended to analyze your audience with elements such as: their age, their geographic location, their job, their work speed, their preferred social networks their preferred connection device (phone, tablet , computer …), his moments of availability. Knowing your audience also allows you to better communicate with them.