19 Social Media Best Practices to Stand Out and Increase Revenue

With an ever-increasing amount of people and companies using social media, you need to stand out if you want to be seen. Being seen is beneficial if you're going to increase your revenue; customers won't buy from you if they haven't heard about you. These nineteen social media best practices can help improve your visibility and stand out in a good way.

They can increase your social reach and engagement and, in turn, create followers who trust you and look to you when they need products and services you offer. Ultimately, this means you increase revenue by marketing to people that get them to come to you.

1. Create quality content

People today have access to more content than ever. For them to spend time with your content, it needs to be high quality and engaging. There are many ways to create content users want to see, and if you are actively working to create, you are off to a great start.

Here are a few questions to ask yourself about your social media content:

• How does this content serve my audience?
• Who's watching this?
• How can I show my personality through this content?
• In what ways does this content connect back to my purpose?

A large part of creating quality content is being human and authentic. You want your viewers to feel a connection when they see your content rather than feel like a robot is spitting information out at them.

Social media is a great place to create relationships, so don't make it feel cold and forced. The comments and style you use in your social media content matter just as much as the words and tone you use face to face with someone. After all, hundreds of thousands of people can see your platforms.

2. Build relationships with your followers

Good content is an excellent start to social media, but don't stop there. As your viewers connect with your posts, put in the effort to build those connections into your relationships. These relationships grow as you interact and engage with your viewers.

• Once you place your content out for the world to see, continue checking in.
• Respond to others' comments and questions—even if it's just with emojis.
• Don't be afraid to make jokes (as long as you stay professional).
• Use their names in your responses for a personal touch.
• Don't wait too long to respond, or you might lose the opportunity to connect and build.

Social media moves fast, and if you don't want to get left behind, you must be there, carrying the conversation and responding quickly as your viewers react.

3. Remember to listen actively

If you are going to stand out in the social media crowd, you ought to maintain composure and understand the perspective of your viewers. If you want customers to respond positively to your products, it is essential to listen to and create relationships withthem. Ideally, you want to facilitate discussions that go back and forth multiple times. To stand out in the digital world today, you need to be a good presenter and listener.

Listening to what others tell you also lets you know what they find worthwhile. As you actively listen to your viewers, you can determine what values you should put into your company.

Here are a few things you can discover:

• Values to represent
• Stances to be vocal on
• Power statements to use in your messaging

If you want your customers to continue to follow you, ensure you know what they need and what others are offering them. You can also learn what doesn't matter to them and what it might be good to stop doing.

4. Look at your competitor’s activity

Another aspect of active listening is listening to your competitors. In general, it is good to monitor what your competitors are doing. This can let you know what others in your field think customers might want.

If they are successful with their offers, you learn more about your customer’s wants and needs, as well as ways to engage with the customer. This allows you to offer what your customers need so they don't look elsewhere and turn to your competitors.

When it comes to learning from your competitors, you'll want to monitor social activity and posts. Take some time regularly to look at what your competitors post and see how they engage with their viewers. You might learn a thing or two that helps you become better engaged with your viewers.

5. Plan for special events

Whether it is a national holiday, a local celebration, or anything in between, include special events in your social media planning. If you're doing something different with your company next month, let your customers know.

And if you're hosting some event that includes time-sensitive information, make sure you are present on your social media platforms:

• Answer questions
• Share sneak peeks about the event
• Keep viewers up to date as changes happen

Social media is an excellent tool for communicating information quickly and efficiently.

Why you should post reminders more often than you think

As you lead up to events, remember to post multiple times. Because social feeds frequently change, it can be easy for consumers to miss something. Posting announcements, updates, and reminders often reduce people's chance of forgetting what is happening.

This also helps eliminate messages and comments like, "That would have been so cool. I wish I had known about this earlier." Plan special events and then the support that will allow them to succeed.

6. Create social media S.M.A.R.T. goals

As you make an effort to incorporate social media best practices in your company's plan, make sure to set goals. Setting and maintaining goals can give direction to your efforts. This allows you to grow from where you are to where you want to be without getting lost or becoming discouraged. It can also help you see how far you have come.

While having goals is excellent, making them S.M.A.R.T. goals will increase the odds of accomplishing these objectives. If you are not familiar with this—or it's time for a refresher—here's an example of these goals from a social media perspective:

• Specific - Improve community engagement in a Facebook Group.
• Measurable - Increase engagement by 30%.
• Attainable - Aiming for 10% weekly growth by inviting, connecting, and following up.
• Relevant - Growing engagement will help prepare for our product launch.
• Time-bound - Reach a 30% increase by June 1st.

By setting goals with this method, you create actionable and definitive plans; clearly defined goals makes it easier to complete your objectives.

By applying these goals to your social media best practices, you will improve your ability to stand out, leading to increased revenue. Fortunately, S.M.A.R.T. goals make it easy to evaluate whether you are working on goals or dreams.

7. Post planning, calendars, and tools

Be consistent with your posting and plan your posts ahead of time. Being consistent allows your audience to know they can count on you and allows them to look forward to your posts. If you post sporadically, many people won't think about you except when you show up on their feed.

Here are a few important tips to help you prep your posts:

• Plan your posts out in order to stay consistent and create a more cohesive feel for your brand.
• Create a posting calendar to organize content.
• Set aside time to create content in bulk.
• Use posting tools like HootSuite or SocialPilot.

Social media management tools are excellent resources for planning and scheduling your content. Some tools allow you to automate your posting, so you don't have to worry about being available at a specific time to post content you have already created. This is especially helpful if you manage multiple sites or platforms and post multiple times a day.

Rather than constantly pausing other tasks to post on social media, you can create and schedule your posts and let social media management tools take care of the rest. Don't abandon other work to apply social media best practices, utilize the tools available, and make the most of your work and time.

8. Utilize analytics

Analytics is another area where media tools can be your friend. As you post, engage, plan, and work on your goals, it is essential to look at how your work is working for you. You can track growth and engagement by taking cross-platform audits and looking at specific engagement analytics.

Don't let the word analytics scare you; there are many tools available to help you look at all of this within various platforms:

• Google Analytics
• TalkWalker
• Panoramiq Insights
• HootSuite Analytics

These assessments will help you measure growth and engagement, but they will also help direct you going forward. Each platform is different, and your brand and followers are also different from other companies' brands and followers.

Your posting history and results will tell you what things work and don't work for your specific audience. It will help you learn what content your viewers connect with and what they tend to look past.

Knowing this allows you to post more of what matters to your followers. This allows your hard work to have further reach and engagement instead of being busy work on your part. Ultimately this means you can create more significant relationships with your viewers. If you're going to put in the effort to create good content, you should make sure it leads to the results you want.

9. Create brand continuity

In your use of social media, it is essential to maintain your brand voice and identity. If your brand is fun-loving and child friendly, let that come across in your posts. If your brand is sophisticated and formal, that should show in the tone and language of your posts.

You don't want your viewers to be confused about your brand because your posts don't convey who you are. And you especially don't want viewers to be confused because your posts are sending mixed messages about your brand.

Tell a story with all your social media platforms

In addition to being consistent from post to post, you want to be compatible with your brand across all platforms. This doesn't mean doing the same thing on each platform. It means keeping your brand style no matter where you are so your viewers will recognize you when they see your content on other media.

Don't let your brand become that person whose identity seems to change based on the crowds they are with. You want your viewers to see you on a different platform and be excited to see a friend, not confused because you are acting like a stranger. 

Consistency will help your customers feel comfortable around you in the future; they may even buy some of your products because of your trustworthy social media presence.

10. Limit business account users

While many hands make light work, remember that too many cooks spoil the broth. If you let every employee access business media accounts, it can be hard to maintain continuity in your social media brands. It can also be challenging to stick to your social media plan if too many people can post for the company.

Implementing other social media best practices often works best by having an individual or a small team take care of all social media accounts. Here are a few other ways the rest of your company can contribute:

• Employees can still be encouraged to interact with posts.
• The social media team might give them specific tasks.
• They can even bring new ideas to the team.

You are not limiting your social media posts by allocating a team of people to work with your social media accounts. You are allowing them room to thrive. The goal is not to limit social media work but to keep it from spiraling into a giant mess.

Treat your social media and content like you would other business areas and have those responsibilities allocated to people whose role is to take care of your social content. This is as much a part of business as other marketing efforts are. By making it an actual function, everyone will have more respect for what social media can do for the company rather than see it as something fun and leisurely.

11. Target your ideal audience

To create a good following and have a lot of engagement, you must create content your audience finds engaging. Your audience isn't forced to follow you. It is something they will choose to do. If you want people to listen to you, you need to think about:

• Who they are
• What they want
• Why they're coming to you
• What questions they have

Know who you want to connect with and appeal to them.

The way you reach out to adults in their 20s and how you speak with middle-aged adults are different. Don't mistake trying to talk to people the wrong way. This is also true for why you are seeking your audience.

Whether people look to you for education, humor, or financial advice determines the tone and voice they expect from you. Once you have put in the work to create your brand, stay true to it for the people who came for what you offer.

If you have a large following, but it isn't leading to increased revenue, consider if the following you have gained finds your products and services worthwhile. Properly representing your brand and targeting your ideal audience should invite followers who will benefit from seeking your business.

If your audience does not respect your brand or services, it's time to change your brand, tone, and posts to adapt to a different target audience—this will generate greater revenue.

12. Be where your customers are

Being where your customers are goes hand in hand with knowing how to target them. Just like knowing your audience determines how you should communicate with them, it also determines where you will share with them. There are so many social media platforms, and they all operate a little differently with slightly different purposes.

Make sure you are on the same media as your customers and that you are using the platform correctly. In a sense, each forum has a different dialect, and you want to make sure you are speaking the correct one to communicate effectively with your viewers.

As you figure out who your customers are and how they communicate, you will learn how to share with them and where to best communicate.

• If you are creating how-to tutorials, Twitter is probably not the best platform for you to be on.
• If you work with visual designs, creations, and images, Instagram might be an excellent platform for you to use.
• If you want to easily share links and materials, you might be better off in a Facebook Group.
• If you want to build B2B connections for potential sales, LinkedIn is the way to go.

Think about what you are sharing and your target audience as you decide where to post.

13. Follow trends and adapt

In an ever-changing world, social media best practices are constantly evolving. As you apply these practices and learn what works for your viewers and business, keep up with the trends. Don't become complacent and stick with the same methods because that is what you have been doing. Instead, continually monitor and research how social media trends are changing for your platforms.

It is also good to keep an eye on other platforms your audience might be active on—move with your audience if they find other platforms appealing.

As you adjust your posts with these trends, remember to customize your content for each network. While you can post much of the same information on each platform, making the same post is lazy and often ineffective.

Different social media platforms work differently, so approach them from a different perspective. For example, if you post the same picture with the same caption on Twitter as well as Instagram, viewers won't have a reason to actively follow you in both spots.

Remember to communicate in a way that is beneficial to your venue. If your followers see identical posts on different platforms, you could also lose viewers. 

Your identical posts teach your consumers they don't need to follow you on each platform if you treat every platform and audience with the same tone. By making time and effort to customize your content for each network, you'll see increased revenue for each platform.

14. Experiment with your hashtags

Hashtags are a standard tool in social media. While they are more prevalent on some platforms than others, their usage continues to grow. Using hashtags is beneficial; however, the details of using them vary.

When using hashtags, some factors to think about are:

• How many to include
• What hashtags to use
• Where to place them
• How long your hashtags are

As you consider each factor, you must consider what platform you are using. Each forum responds to hashtags differently, so what works on one platform might not work on others.

Different brands also find various hashtag applications; using different hashtag features may seem confusing at first, but it can increase awareness of your business. 

Do your research on hashtags for your brand and platform and be willing to experiment.

Try different combinations of hashtag allocations and use analytics to see what works best for your social media. 

The following are a few general rules to get you started:

• Less is more (three to five hashtags per post).
• In-text is better than listing hashtags at the end; viewers are less likely to click on the hashtag links if they are at the bottom of a post.
• Use a combination of long and short keywords.
• Only use relevant keywords.

15. Things to consider with influence

Influencers are becoming a more significant part of social media. If you choose to work with influencers, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Focus on influencers who match your brand. Are they a good match for your company? What other products do they promote? Do your research.

• Discover influencers with the right audience. An influencer with fifty-thousand followers won't mean anything if none of those followers are interested in your products. Ideally, your influencers will have an audience that matches your target audience.

• Don't discount micro-and nano-influencers. While they have smaller audiences, they usually have more personal connections with their followers, and they are more niched for their specific topics.

Influencers within these categories are becoming more common and have more impact than they previously had. As a result, the influencers have a more significant influence within their community. It also increases the chance of finding a group where a high percentage of the followers closely align with your target audience.

16. Visuals and videos

People respond well to visuals. We are more likely to interact with a post that has an image associated with it (especially on platforms such as Instagram, where the focus is on the image).

In fact, 72% of consumers said they'd rather learn about a product through a video. This is all valuable to remember and utilize in your social media practices. While creating posts with images and videos takes a little more effort, there is a significant viewer return for that effort.

User-generated content

One popular trend for visuals is sharing user-generated content (UGC). If people share comments or images of using your product and you can use that in your posts, it adds credibility. This is like sharing a user's review of your product with which other followers can connect. While people are often hesitant to believe a seller, they are more likely to trust another user.

Upload directly

When sharing videos, upload them directly to your posting platform. Social media likes to keep users engaged on their site, so if you upload your video directly to Facebook rather than linking it from YouTube, the platform is more likely to promote your post. Do your work correctly so that social media won't hide your efforts.

17. Create diversified content

Using visuals and videos is good, but don't overdo it. Variety is the spice of life, and if your followers feel like you are posting the same thing constantly, they will get bored.

Using content diversity doesn't mean you can't have any predictability or stability. It does mean refrain from making most of your posts 30-second videos that follow the same scripted format.

Make your content a nice blend of safe and exciting; repetition and predictability are good when used appropriately. Once you find the right balance of diverse content, your consumers will continue to watch your videos and trust your social media presence.

While it might take a bit of experimenting to find a good balance for you and your followers, creating a diversified content pattern can be highly beneficial. 

For example, you might take each day of the week and create a different theme:

• Monday Motivation
• Transformation Tuesday
• Winesday Wednesday
• Throwback Thursday
• Funny Friday
• Self-Care Sunday

This way, you have a pattern to work from and know what you need to create, and your viewers can look forward to upcoming posts without getting bored.

18. Make your presence known

You know those little buttons you can put on your website or emails that take people straight to your social media pages? They are usually little squares with the platform logo on them. Including those might not seem like a big deal, but they are a vast resource you should be using. Those little buttons make your presence known. 

You let people know where they can find you and simultaneously hand them a shortcut to your pages. People love easy things. And there is a much higher chance someone will click on that button than going to a social media homepage and searching for you—especially if they don't even know whether they will find you on a specific platform.

Instead of making people look for you, do yourself a favor and place your social media presence in their hands. This is an especially great resource since you can do the work once and save tons of people from having to work to find you.

19. Prioritize helping your followers

One final practice to keep in mind is prioritizing helping people vs. overselling them. Most people don't like sitting through a sales pitch, even if they want the product. By emphasizing that your goal is to help, they are more likely to stick around, and when they are ready for what you sell, they'll come to you.

Social media is a great place to create, connect, and build relationships. You can get to know your audience, and they can get to know you. As you make these relationships, you will also gain the trust and loyalty of those following you.

Of course, you can always sell on social media, and convenient shoppable posts are a great resource. Just don't forget that these platforms are about more than shoving sales pitches in everyone's faces. By creating connections and making yourself valuable to your followers, you will be the people they turn to when they need your services.

You aren't just making friends. You are creating future sales.

Smith.ai can help you stand out

As you put in the effort to apply these practices, stand out on social media, and create a following, you will receive more comments and messages on both social media and your site. It is vital to respond quickly to people, but the reality is you are likely to have other tasks that need your focus.

And sometimes, you need a break from social media. Luckily, we offer 24/7 chat answering. Using our services lets you know your followers will receive answers promptly while still allowing you the freedom to work on other parts of your business. Take the pressure off your employees to monitor chat services and let them focus on their work.

When you use Smith.ai, your business practices, revenue, and relationships with future consumers can improve. Let our trained professionals take care of responding to chats and text messages for you. We can help you with what we do best so that you can focus on what you do best.  

Running a business takes a lot of hard work and dedication, but the virtual receptionists at Smith.ai are here to take care of the tasks that help keep your business moving. Book a free 30-minute sales consultation with us so we can discuss your business’s needs. During our call, we can explain our pricing and our 14-day, money-back guarantee, along with any other questions you have about our services. Get started with Smith.ai today.