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Social Media Marketing Advice
I was recently hired as an social media marketing intern for a start-up. I am in charge of running the company’s Instagram and Facebook accounts and I am wondering if I should be boosting posts to help the accounts gain an active following on either platform. Both accounts have been around for about 2 years but have never been posted on consistently. I have developed brand consistent templates for consistent posts 7 days a week on Instagram and Facebook and I plan on posting articles related to the company (it will be a platform where women are able to invest in themselves and their careers) on Facebook, which I will then cross promote on Instagram. I know that consistency is key when it comes to social media, and I know that can and should lead to growth. Is it necessary to promote posts on either or both platforms? I have seen several posts about Facebook being pay to play unless you are a part of a group and the business does have a group set up. I am also concerned about carousel posts on Instagram. I have seen various articles that state carousel posts are favored by the algorithm, but in my experience, hashtags don’t favor them. Any advice would be greatly appreciated! Thank you!
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7 Replies
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If you can afford it, boost every post… even if it is just $4 at $1/day. Make sure you use the target audience options.
Also, try and make some content once a week that leads to their landing page if you’re trying to get web traffic/leads out of it.
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When I worked as a Social Media Manager, we would boost posts on Facebook onto Instagram. I wouldn’t boost every post but ones that are about events, contests/giveaways, or about the company or a even when you collaborate with someone else in the industry/ community that’s a big deal.
As for the whole carousel post being favored by the algorithm, the algorithm favors content that keeps users on the app longer so that can include carousel post as people probably spend more time looking through the images in the post, but you have to at least have a amazing first image to get people interested.
While it’s great that you have the tools to post daily don’t forget to have content for stories! You can usually get away with not having to post daily to Instagram if you do daily stories (which you can boost from Facebook to Instagram as well if you want a greater reach). Trying out the IGTV train could be beneficial as well as Instagram is trying to get more users on it, they recently monetized IGTV as well to help get more users attention.
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As an intern I would have this discussion with the person supervising/mentoring me. They should have the answers to your questions.
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You mentioned that your manager isn’t great at social media but he or she would have insights into the company’s business needs.
Before you ask if you should be putting money behind posts, ask why you should be doing that and how would that support the overall social media objectives, and business objectives.
What are your metrics for measurement? Do you just want engagement? Page likes? Shares? How would that help with the business objectives?
These are some questions that might help you find an answer.
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hi! i don’t really have advice on boosting posts, but i wanted to ask if you have tips on creating brand consistent templates? im running the social media pages for my student club, and im really struggling w the brand consistent themes/templates!
thanks in advance 🙂
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Don’t boost. Create ads on ads manager. You get better results and can use posts that are posted/scheduled.
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Social media isn’t just for photos. It is one of the most powerful tools today for businesses to stay in front of the customer and find new ones.
For businesses, it will help to see everything as a funnel for leads.
Some people philosophize about this in many ways. Some people say “omg but u need to humanize your social media” or “you can’t always b tryin to sell something,” or “well if u use social media for leads, then u are focusing on the wrong thing, and u need to connect deeply.”
But the best marketers realize social media is one big tool for funneling customers into buying your product or service. Maybe not now, but maybe in the future. Your message can ultimately have the qualities of connection, customer centricity, and being about high quality content, but if your social media profile is a part of marketing, then understanding it is a funnel will help you craft your messages.
There are no exclusions if you are a business. There are some people who have a blog like Bill Gates who only talks about world issues and good books and doesn’t ask you to buy anything, ever. But in reality, he is getting his big picture message out there on topics like global poverty alleviation and sanitation for third world countries. Even social media celebrities might not care about selling their t-shirts, but they do need to keep putting content out there that people will watch.
Even Tom Cruise wants people to know about his next movie, but his social media team doesn’t go about selling it. All the big producers do the marketing through media.
I say that to say this, you will need to modify your message, and people don’t like being sold to, which makes your crafting of the social media page more important. But, realizing it is a funnel is helpful in understanding how to develop marketing campaigns beyond social media alone thereby building long term customers.
Depending on your product you’re probably gonna be doing one of three things. There could be “more things” but this is basic.
Generating brand awareness for a product. Super passive just to get your product noticed by the right audience. Like a soda company just posting a photo of their soda. Hardcore advertising men or women might not agree with being overly artsy for arts sake, and want more actionable content, but this depends on your approach and budget. Obviously Nike can afford to have billboards and their logo on athletes pants, even if no one can click them to buy. But a small or medium sized business needs to try to make all their dollars count.
Getting someone to take action on a product through ads, or a “click the link to get the offer” and buy post or IG live. Like any ad you see.
Or getting someone to register for an email list for future offers. You might not do this if you sell paper or super commodity products, but if you provide a value add service or some technology, it helps to stay in front of them.
So now you know what is so powerful about social media and how some of the leading marketers in the world understand it as a business tool. It is up to you to apply the creativity behind it so your customers love your brand, content, message, and you can connect with the right people.
Edit: Notes on your approach:
Good job setting the “culture” of your messages with the branding.
Facebook is like a community gathering while Instagram is like a party and everyones had some drinks and likes to take photos. If you really want to get experimental and play around and post A LOT, use Twitter.But for Facebook or IG, you don’t need to post every day. What would be a good use of your time is making at most 4 posts per week on IG or FB, then help to develop the rest of your “funnel” including email campaigns or working with the sales team depending on your product. But also to do at least one or two really good paid, revenue driving campaigns and learn about the ins and outs of social ad buying. That will be helpful to you, and your business will learn a lot about their target audience if you know how to track and measure that.
Idea sources for this: Claude Hopkins, David Ogilvy, Tai Lopez, Gary Vaynerchuk, and a handful of other articles and courses about social media advertising.
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