You've upgraded your online presence by creating social media profiles for your business. You're expecting your social media engagement to bring floods of new customers, but it hasn't happened yet. What's missing? What do you need to do?
Of the many ingredients that go into each post, there are countless variations. There is no perfect social media post, but there is such a thing as a perfect social media post for your brand.
Below are listed the four key components that will help you create the perfect social media post for your brand:
1. Keep it short:
Your audience's time is important, so try to get your message across in as few words as possible. At DS&P we try keep headlines under 20 words and use a maximum of 50 words in the description. Also, be as clear an concise as possible. That will help your audience spend more time paying attention to your key message rather than deciphering what you're trying to say. When possible, use emojis. They can show a reaction or emotion, rather that explaining something.
2. Compelling Visuals
When you combine great writing with attractive visuals, you’re well on your way to creating the perfect social media post.
Add a variety of media formats to social media posts. Rather than just sticking with images, try mixing things up with video content, blog links, GIFs, or other rich media assets relevant to your organization.
Create new social assets to use instead of preview images. social media automatically pulls a preview image from the content when you’re sharing a link. Instead of accepting whatever shows up, Wood suggests creating a separate social asset to offer additional information to your audience.
Be strategic with video content. We recommend finding a length that works for your brand, but shorter videos often work best. Keep your videos under a minute and make sure you're adding value.
3. Timing
The perfect social media post for your brand is about more than just the content. Even if
you have the best content, if you’re posting at a time when your audience is asleep or inactive you aren’t going to see great results.
So know when and how often to post.
To find the optimal time to post, we recommends testing a variety of times to see where you get the most activity. Social media also offers analytics that will help you see when your following tendencies are. It’s very important to know your audience and whether they’re in different time zones. We try not to post before a certain time so we can reach our Eastern time zone audience at the end of the day, and our West Coast audiences as they’re leaving work.
Businesses should also know how often to post. We share once a day on social media as we have a large audience across different time zones. We found this was the amount that works best for our audience and content. While we have posted up to eight times a day, we saw a significant increase in engagement after we cut down our number of daily posts and focused on quality instead of quantity.
4. Call To Action
The CTA compels your audience to complete an action, so if you aren’t providing one
you’re missing out on a huge opportunity for click-throughs and engagement. But, if you offer too many CTAs on one post, there’s a good chance your audience will get overwhelmed and fail to click anywhere.
Every brand will have a different formula for the perfect social media post. With the tips above, you can figure out what works—and what doesn’t—for your audience.
If you would like to receive a free assessment for your social media business profile, don't hesitate to contact us below.