Interested in taking your social media strategy to the next level? It’s not enough to just post on social media channels. Reconsider your overall strategy and how to reach your audience with relevant and engaging content. To up your social media game and gain a competitive advantage against the vast amounts of content out there, implement these top 20 tips

Analyze how you execute your social media strategy and the tools you are using for publishing and monitoring your posts. Whether Hootsuite, HubSpot, or another social media tool, you’ll want to use a tool that compliments your marketing activities and that is easy to use.

When was the last time you did buyer persona research to understand your target audience? According to the Buyer Persona Institute, you should define your personas by interviewing recent buyers from the last 30-60 days or at least from the last year. Consider revisiting your buyer persona research on a yearly basis to have the most up-to-date information.

Consider additional social media channels like Instagram, Pinterest, and Snapchat. Choose channels that your buyer personas are using and engaging with. Go beyond the main channels of Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.

Include a social media section in your overall editorial plan. Social media content should be a large part of your content marketing plan, not an afterthought.

Staying consistent with your voice and messaging and following your company’s writing guidelines for social media posts and marketing content will help make it easier for your readers to digest content.

Consider sharing your customers’ and employees’ social media content, in addition to key influencers within the industry. By doing so, customers and employees will be more likely to engage and respond to your posts in the future. Also, reach out to top influencers and ask them to share a blog post you’ve written or a content offer you have.

People like doing business with other people, not just companies. Include posts about your company’s participation in charitable events, the latest office potluck, and recent holiday parties.

You may have social media icons on your website and in your email footer, but go beyond the icons and include detailed links to relevant social media posts. Encourage prospects to share, follow, and engage with a particular post.

Want your employees to engage and share social media content with their networks? Try using a platform like Gaggle to up your social media game and provide rewards for employees that top the leaderboard with the most posts shared and the largest engagement among their network.

Hire someone with a solid background in social media marketing to be responsible for posts on a full-time basis. They should have the ability to watch and analyze metrics in order to maintain the overall social media strategy.

Social media posts do not have a one-size-fits-all approach. Each social media channel uniquely engages visitors and helps them digest content. Optimize social media messages to align with the channel and display content accordingly.

Go beyond the standard link back to your home page and create custom pillar pages that provide great resources for your buyers. See an example of a pillar page here.

Use a variety of content including: video clips, photo layouts, clickable quotes, gifs, and live posts. Think quality over quantity. There is so much social media content out there, you’ll want to stand out from the crowd and use the most interesting content format possible.

How do you know which ones to use? Try using Keyhole or HashTagify to determine which hashtags have high popularity and are currently trending. Also, try Moz and SEMrush to determine which keywords have high search volumes.

Go beyond the standard link back to your home page and create custom pillar pages that provide great resources for your buyers. See an example of a pillar page here.

Social media isn’t a one-way street. Spend as much time engaging with other content as you do posting content with the same target audience and within the same industry.

Know what you are up against when it comes to your competitors’ social media game. Monitor their posts and follow their channels. From there, you can determine how to gain a competitive advantage.

Set goals for your social media strategy based on the S.M.A.R.T. acronym. The goals should be Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Timely.

People may stop engaging with your content if you are always trying to sell them something in the immediate post. Instead, consider providing a link to a pricing page or promotion.

It is easy to overwhelm your audience with too many posts. Again, think quality over quantity. Check out this post from Forbes to hear from the pros on how often you should post on social media.

Finally, remember to have fun with your social media posts and only post what is interesting and relevant, and your readers will respond accordingly.

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