With more than 60% of the global population active on social media, B2B marketers can no longer afford to overlook its potential. Whether you are a seasoned marketer handling several accounts or a new creator establishing a personal brand, it’s imperative to keep upgrading with best practices for social media marketing.
While we can offer generic advice like, “give what the audience wants”, “ post consistently”, social media is much more than these statements. The constantly changing algorithms, changing consumer expectations and impact of AI are challenging these generic tips to the test. Marketers must capitalize on trending topics, adapt content based on consumer queries, respond to feedback, and analyze if their actions achieve the expected results.
As pioneers in AI-driven social media marketing, we are eager to offer these social media best practices to elevate your online presence effectively in 2024.
Must-Try Social Media Best Practices in 2024
Social media managers must be aware of the constantly evolving trends and the changes in the algorithms to effectively grow their business. Here are some things you must start implementing in your social media management:
1. Preparing Audience Profiles
Identifying who you want to reach via social media should be done early in the planning process.
Each member of your social media team must have great clarity when contended with these questions:
- Who am I speaking to through my social media?
- What gender and age group do they belong to?
- What are their most active times on social media?
- What are their interests?
- What are their pain points?
- How can my product/service address these needs?
The answers to these questions can help you estimate your target audience.
2. Choosing Relevant Social Media Platforms
The spray-and-pray approach to grow your social media is so yesteryear. Social media managers must identify and prioritize growing in select platforms that align best with their audience’s preferences and business objectives. Rather than setting up profiles and promoting content on all platforms, prioritize those platforms where your target demographic is most active and engaged.
For instance, LinkedIn is the go-to platform for networking, recruiting, and sharing industry insights. 82% of B2B marketers find LinkedIn brings in the most success than other social media platforms.
And Twitter is most effective for news, real-time conversations, and updates, making it invaluable for thought leaders, journalists, and brands that thrive on staying topical. Tech startups, public figures, and customer service-focused businesses can use Twitter for rapid interaction and crisis management.
Research shows that GenZ is increasingly using Instagram and TikTok to learn more about local businesses. If that’s your cohort, you must be active on these platforms.
Every social media platform operates differently, and packs features to cater to different audiences. Identifying your target audience early on, helps you determine which platforms are essential and which ones you can skip.
3. Framing Clear Brand Guidelines
To distinguish yourself from the competition, have clear and identifiable guidelines. These encompass your profile images, brand logo colors, typeface, language, tone of conversation, etc. Ensure consistency across all your social posts and channels to foster brand recognition.
Brand guidelines also include legal compliance. You don’t want to attract the wrong kind of attention through a social media post. This addresses copyright violations or, more recently, the use of AI.
3. Understanding Social Media Algorithms
Think of social media algorithms as a higher authority influencing what people see on their feeds, compelling you to adapt. These rules and signals consider a user’s behavior and past content consumption patterns on different social media platforms.
Social media managers must update themselves with the latest algorithmic changes to modify their content. The algorithms differ from platform to platform, and for some mediums like Instagram, each feature has its own algorithm. Following them will improve your social media presence and reach a wider audience.
4. Creating a Content Calendar
Having a clear, categorized map of your content strategy simplifies social media management. Every month, prepare a content calendar that specifies the type of content for each network, planned promotional activities, posting times, and designated person responsible for the updates.
You can use social media management tools like Highperformr to have your content calendar on one single dashboard. You can seamlessly schedule your posts across all handles and update status reports of the same.
5. Streamlining Your Workflow
If you have ever worked in a social media team managing multiple clients, you’d be familiar with all the approval hassles and back-and-forth that happens even for a single post. The repetitive tasks are time-consuming and prone to errors. On the other hand, a streamlined workflow ensures consistency, minimizes risk and improves overall performance.
What if we told you, you could get feedback from seniors and approvals with one click? On Highperformr, you can customize workspaces, add users, grant them permissions and seek quick approvals.
6. Engaging in Social Listening
According to Social Listening Labs, over 50% of social intelligence professionals report that their company spends more than $50,000 on social listening tools annually. Social listening can help you determine trends in your niche and what people expect of you or your competitors. It's a valuable tool for gauging public opinion and conducting market research. Armed with this information, you can make the right decisions regarding your future offerings.
7. Leveraging The Potential of AI
The availability of Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools significantly streamlines the once-tedious processes of content creation and analytical reporting, making them far more efficient and quicker. Influencer Marketing Hub’s survey found that over 60% of marketers use AI in marketing.
With the right tools, you can easily implement all the above social media strategies. For instance, with Highperformr AI you can optimize content creation, automate scheduling, and enhance analytical precision. With Highperformr, marketers can effortlessly align their campaigns with audience insights and trends, ensuring maximum engagement and ROI.
Social Media Best Practices for Design and Content Creation
8. Customize Content For Every Network
A TikTok trend is likely to be emulated on Instagram, but it may not get the same reactions on Twitter. Therefore, it is necessary to design different types of content for each network. While video content is popular across major social networks, you can have a small version on Instagram and a longer, detailed video on YouTube.
Customize posts depending on the audience of each network. Designing fresh content with newer perspectives can simultaneously build credibility across all platforms.
9. Repurpose Content
Can you cross-promote the same pictures with captions across Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and LinkedIn? While you can, making slight changes and repurposing content is recommended to reach every audience differently. Identify opportunities to share your content in different formats for new followers. Repurposing does not take time; it accelerates content creation.
10. Check Optimal Sizes for Visual Elements
On social media, there is no one-size-fits-all. The dimensions of images, videos and other visual elements differ across platforms and within various features of one app. When you are designing social media posts or ad elements, recheck all the image sizes.
Since most people access social media via mobile devices, consider how these images appear on various screens.
11. Make User-Generated Content
Instead of simply promoting your products/services, let your loyal customers do the talking. Research finds that 30% of millennials spend their time on social media engaging with content created and curated by their peers. Feature user-generated content (UGC) on your social channels to build trust among your new viewers.
Apple’s #ShotoniPhone is one of the greatest examples of UGC, and all its posts are beautiful photos clicked by iPhone users.
12. Run A/B Testing
A/B testing is valuable on social media because it allows you to compare two post versions to see which performs better. Testing different copy or visual elements lets you identify what resonates most with the audience. This data-driven approach will optimize your content for engagement, clicks, or conversions.
Best Social Media Practices for B2B Brands
Along with the above steps, B2B companies can tweak their social media strategy to focus more on building their network instead of overt promotions.
13. Share Insightful Resources
Use social media to share your original research, which can interest other brands in your industry. You can even gatekeep some of these in-depth papers with an email ID to have a list of potential leads and competitors. Share a few snippets and leave a CTA that makes them want to know more. You can demonstrate your thought leadership with such articles, whitepapers, or case studies.
14. Focus on LinkedIn
LinkedIn is a pivotal platform due to its professional user base and industry-focused environment. Leverage the social platform to network with industry professionals, participate in relevant groups, and share content highlighting your expertise. This platform is ideal for B2B interactions because it allows for targeted content distribution. You can also build meaningful business connections that lead to future partnerships.
Use Highperformr to Implement Your Social Media Strategies
Implementing these social media best practices becomes efficient if you rely on Highperformr, an excellent social media management platform. This tool not only streamlines the execution of various social media tactics but also significantly reduces the time and effort involved in creating content for them.
Highperformr offers a collaborative dashboard where team members can manage tasks, monitor progress, and access analytics—all from a single interface. This ensures the entire team is in the loop about what is being posted and the overall performance of social media campaigns. Its comprehensive analytics feature gives insights into engagement rates, follower growth, and other crucial metrics. This data is invaluable for assessing the impact of your social media activities and guiding data-driven decisions to optimize your marketing strategy.
