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There is a designated national day for just about everything from National Bloody Mary Day on January 1, to National Make Up Your Mind Day on December 31. Silly, serious, and just plain ‘out there’ days are perfect for generating conversations about specific topics. As public relations and communications professionals, the LaunchTech team is particularly excited for Social Media Day on June 30.
Social Media Day is dedicated to celebrating all the ways in which social sharing has bolstered global communications. For those who have grown up as digital natives, it is incomprehensible that at one point it wasn’t commonplace to know what was going in the lives of friends, strangers, and celebrities all around the world, 24-hours a day. On average, adults spend around 11 hours per day interacting with media, including using smart devices¹. That’s a lot of facetime with consumers for brands to take advantage of with a strategic social media presence! Whether your company focuses on B2B, B2C, or B2G marketplaces, social media is worth your time and budget. A strong social media presence helps increase brand awareness, establish thought leadership, and disseminate important company information.
In honor of Social Media Day 2019, we have compiled some basic tips for enhancing businesses’ profiles, pages, and organic content using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram.
Ideal for showing partners and friendlies some love by tagging them and using relevant hashtags, Twitter is a great platform for businesses. In addition to making interactions with associates quick and easy, Twitter’s polling feature is excellent for crowdsourcing public opinion about a new product or service idea. For example, a mobile security company may be working on several new feature updates and wants to research what current users feel should be prioritized for release. That company can list up to four upcoming features and ask users to vote. Need some extra help? The @TwitterBusiness handle offers valuable resources for those just starting out.
The go-to platform for professional connections, LinkedIn is most practical for thought leadership and industry news content. LinkedIn is making slow but steady progress to include social media users’ favorite features from the more casual platforms. For example, Company Page admins can now grow their page’s audience by inviting personal connections to follow it. This tool has the potential to help generate direct message conversations and, thus, hot leads.
Facebook remains the most used social media platform worldwide. While recent algorithm changes have made it exceptionally difficult for Business Pages’ organic posts to be prioritized in followers’ Newsfeeds, it’s possible to increase the odds of your content being seen. The best way to do so is to leverage Facebook Live since videos on Facebook receive around 8 billion views a day. Content ideas for Live videos include hosting a Q&A session about your products or services, showing your presence at an industry event, and product demonstrations. It’s important to note that a vast majority of videos on Facebook are viewed without the sound on, so it’s critical to announce when you will be hosting your Live leading up to it so viewers can “tune in”.
When setting up an Instagram profile for your business it’s easy to just leave it as a standard profile and call it a day, but that’s not recommended. Instagram offers the ability to convert a standard profile into a Business Profile. As a Business Profile, you’ll have the ability to include clickable CTAs such as Call and Email. To convert to a Business Profile hit the menu bar in the top right of your profile page, select Settings, Account, and Switch to Business. Lastly, just fill out your business’s information.
“It can be challenging to keep track of social media best practices, algorithm changes, and top performing content types,” adds Wayne Schepens, LaunchTech Communication’s Managing Director. Let LaunchTech handle the day-to-day so you can focus on what you do best – running your business. If you’re interested in our Social Media services, email us at info@golaunchtech.com or call 410-533-9708 for more information.