Social Media Best Practices Every Business Should Follow

The world of social media marketing is all about finding your way through the maze of do’s and don’ts on each social media channel.

Whether you’re crafting your brand’s story on the visually-driven Instagram, engaging in fast-paced conversations on X, or building professional networks on LinkedIn, understanding the nuances of each channel is key to your marketing team’s success.

15 Must-Know Social Media Best Practices

As a company, some general guidelines are worth following across all social networks.

1. Set Goals

Never start a social media marketing initiative without goals. The best goals are always SMART:

• Specific: Set fixed figures (ex: “We will achieve a 5% increase in engagement this quarter”).
• Measurable: Have a metric you’ll use to track progress toward each goal.
• Aspirational: Goals should stretch your abilities while being realistically attainable.
• Relevant: Achieving this goal will help deliver a positive business outcome.
• Time-Based: There’s a deadline to achieve it.

2. Plan Using A Social Media Calendar

Keeping a busy social media schedule organized is nearly impossible without a calendar.

• Planning saves time. Knowing what you’ll post in advance reduces time wasted searching for content to share.
• Calendars keep teams accountable for deadlines. When everyone can see when projects are due, they’re more likely to get done.
• You can post more strategically. You can plan out entire campaigns around an intentional schedule, all in one place where the whole team can collaborate.

Coschedule’s Social Calendar is the best way to organize your work and schedule your social media posts in one place.

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With Social Calendar, you can:

• Get total visibility of your social media strategy
• Ensure a consistent and engaging online presence
• Optimize your social messages to enhance your engagement
• Automate your social publishing with Best Time Scheduler
• Integrate with other content types to streamline promotions across various channels

3. Follow Correct Social Media Image Sizes

You want your images to be visually appealing and clear. Part of that happens with the size of your images. Not quite sure what size to make your image for optimal engagement? Check out this sizing guide below:

4. Make A Content Strategy For Each Social Network

What works on one network, might not on another. So, have a plan for what types of content you’ll share on each platform.

Here are some reasons why you need a social media content strategy:

5. Select The Best Channels For Your Business

Not every business needs to be on every social network. If you’re unsure whether a network is a good fit for your business, start by reviewing each platform’s purpose and strengths:

Then, answer a few more questions:

• What is our company trying to achieve on social media? Think of broader business objectives (increase brand awareness, drive sales, establish authority, etc). Then, consider tactical aims like driving website traffic, conversions, and the like.
• Can a given network help achieve those goals? If traffic is a primary goal, something like Instagram might not be the best choice.
• Would our audience reasonably expect us to be on a given platform? See if you have any competitors doing well on a given network.

6. Define Your Social Media Voice And Tone

Is your brand serious or funny? Professional or sarcastic?

These are examples of traits that inform the voice of your brand on social media. And finding your voice is key to connecting with your audience.

Defining your voice involves tackling three things:

1. What do you want your brand to sound like online?
2. Who is your target audience and what vocabulary do they use?
3. Based on the first two questions, what will your audience want to hear from you?

7. Post At The Best Times

To maximize the number of eyes that see your content you need to post your messages at optimal times:

You can find in-app analytics on the best times to post from Facebook and Instagram, but other major social media networks (Twitter, Pinterest, etc.) calculate days, not times.

8. Focus On Quality Over Quantity

Some social networks require a high volume of content to make them worthwhile. Twitter is one that immediately comes to mind. Pinterest may be up there, too. But, always emphasize quality over quantity. Avoid posting anything simply for the sake of it, and make sure every post is connected to a broader goal or objective.

9. Automate Processes Where Possible

There’s no sense in doing things manually when they can easily be automated. What can be automated in your social media process?

• Scheduling social media messages.
• Fill in images into your social media messages. See how CoSchedule can do this for you with our social templates.

10. Use The Right Brand Voice

Nobody wants to follow a brand that sounds dull and robotic. Regardless of how boring you think your niche might be, you communicate with real people. So, use language your audience uses, and respond to users with language that sounds like it’s coming from a real person.

11. Mix Up Your Content

No one likes to see social media posts that are all about products 100% of the time.

According to Hubspot, 45% of people will unfollow brands because they post too many promotional items.

Since they took the time to follow you on social media there is a good chance they are already interested in you as a company. Publishing promotional posts non-stop will turn people off to your brand because it seems like you care more about your products than you do about conversing with them.

To avoid those promotional posting schedules try mixing them up with different message topics try mixing it up with:

• Job postings
• Company culture posts
• Community news (if it’s relevant to your brand)
• Industry news
• GIFs
• Branded content
• Informative blog posts

12. Research Your Competitors

Taking the time to research your competitors could help inspire your content. Why? Because your competitors are fighting for the same audience that you are. If their content is drawing over your fans it might be time to revamp your social tactics.

Draw from the best and make it your own after all.

How can you accurately track your competitors?

Start by making a list of your top five social media competitors. From there, pick your top five channels and note which competitors are on each of your top five channels.

This next part might seem incredibly time-consuming but trust us, it’s worth it. Look at their past 6 months of content and observe the following:

• What types of content are they sharing?
• On average how much engagement do they seem to get for each message they post?
• How does their voice and tone compare to your own?

13. Track And Act On Engagement Data

Social media allows you to track a wide variety of statistics but depending on your overall goals the statistics you need to be tracking will change.

If you’re looking to track engagement statistics, you will be looking at how often your followers interact with your content. You need to track likes, comments, and shares for each one of your posts manually or you can use tools to track that engagement for you.

14. Don’t Rely On Auto Cross Channel Posting Settings

Have you ever seen someone cross-post from Twitter onto Facebook? Or Instagram on Twitter? The results often look like a truncated link and some cut-off text. Not great. Instead, tailor every social media post to its respective network.

15. Optimize Your Social Profiles For Maximum Exposure

If your social profiles aren’t filled out the maximum with the same information about your company you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect with your customer base.

Go through your current social profile and make sure the following are consistent:

• Username
• Profile and header photos
• Bios
• Company descriptions
• Links

5 Facebook Marketing Best Practices

Tightening algorithms have made organic Facebook marketing even more challenging than in years past. That means marketers need to up their game. Clean up your strategic execution with these top best practices.

1. Use Hashtags Sparingly

Studies show excessive hashtag usage decreases clicks on Facebook. So, keep it tasteful and use no more than one or two per post (if you need to use any at all).

2. Upload Video Directly

Facebook wants users to spend more time on Facebook (rather than leaving to consume content somewhere else).

This may be one reason why natively uploaded video outperforms YouTube links. One study from Quintly showed native video uploads received 530% comments (likely due to appearing in more people’s newsfeeds). While Facebook prefers .mp4 or .mov files, you can use any of the following:

3. Keep Your Post Copy Concise

According to data CoSchedule gathered when developing the Social Media Optimizer, the best length for a Facebook post is shorter than you might think. 111 characters appeared to be the sweet spot, but you don’t necessarily need to take this for gospel. Just keep your posts tight and concise, and certainly no longer than they need to be:

4. Complete Your “About” Section

This is something simple yet easily overlooked. Take the time to complete your company’s About section.

5. Avoid Overly Promotional Post Copy

You can avoid overly promotional post copy by:

1. Providing value through educational, informative, or entertaining content.
2. Tell stories to make your posts relatable and engaging.
3. Focus on highlighting the benefits of your product or service.
4. Incorporate social proof to demonstrate value.
5. Encourage interaction by asking questions.

Following some of these tips will help you maintain authenticity and engagement on your Facebook page while promoting your brand.

3 Instagram Marketing Best Practices to Enhance Your Brand

This is a powerful platform for visual brands. Make sure you’re maximizing your mileage from every post with these tactics and best practices.

1. Use Location Tagging on Posts

People love seeing photos from interesting places. So, it makes sense that geotagging posts lead to more engagement.

2. Don’t Forget About Hashtags

Instagram allows up to 30 hashtags per post. Stick to around 10 or so at most to avoid overdoing it. Also, be sure your hashtags are relevant to each post. Even using just a couple of highly relevant hashtags can improve engagement.

You’ll also want to make sure you’re posting at the right times for maximum engagement. Not sure when that is? Check out this blog post to find out.

3. Strive For Authenticity

People come to Instagram to be entertained and inspired. So, create posts that inspire and entertain, rather than just promote your brand. To see what your audience might enjoy most, spend some time on Instagram looking through competitors’ accounts, and accounts targeted toward your audience’s interests. This will give you a solid idea of what your audience would like to see.

4 X (Twitter) Marketing Best Practices to Grow Your Business

This is an important network for gathering news and information. Make the most of it by following these tips.

1. Respond to Comments

This goes for any network but is particularly important on X. Leaving comments and questions unanswered not only leaves dissatisfied customers but it also creates a negative impression for anyone else who happens to see those unanswered tweets.

2. Avoid Hashtag Spam

Hashtags are vital on X. When used well, they can help give your tweets added exposure. But, make extra certain you’re not going overboard. Stick to up to two or three relevant hashtags per tweet.

If you’re wanting to speed up the time it takes to create a tweet, check out CoSchedule’s Free AI Tweet Generator. All you have to do is input your topic, target audience, and tone to instantly generate the perfect tweet. Oh yeah, you can also generate a list of SEO-friendly hashtags to optimize your posts. Try out the Free Hashtag Generator today.

3. Use Images to Drive Engagement

According to BrightTalk, tweets with images have been shown to get 150% more engagement. That certainly doesn’t mean every tweet needs an image every time, but try to include imagery when and where possible.

4. Automate Your Twitter Schedule

Perhaps no network benefits more from automation than Twitter. It’s a high-volume network, requiring lots of posts consistently scheduled each day to maintain success. CoSchedule’s social media scheduling functionality can help make managing a full schedule much easier. You can also check out when the best times are to post here.

4 LinkedIn Marketing Best Practices to Improve Your Professional Presence

With more than 500 million users worldwide, LinkedIn is likely the most important professional social networking site on the web.

1. Keep It Professional

This isn’t the place for selfies, entertaining memes and GIFs. Leave those to Twitter. You’ll also want to post at the right times for your connections to see it. Check out this post to find out the best times to post on LinkedIn.

2. Share Informative Industry News

LinkedIn users want information that’s going to help them in their careers. Sharing that kind of content is an easy way to help establish authority and become known as a useful source of information.

Posting on LinkedIn often involves more thought and careful wording than any other platform. If you’re stumped on how to post on LinkedIn, try out CoSchedule’s Free LinkedIn Post Generator. Simply type in your topic, target audience, and tone of voice to instantly draft the perfect LinkedIn post.

3. Add Job Listings to Your Company’s LinkedIn Page

Job hunters are on LinkedIn. So, why not put your job listings in front of them? Follow this guide to create job listings directly on LinkedIn.

4. Update Your Company’s About Section

This is something easy to overlook. Just make sure everything is completed accurately. Prospective job applicants and business partners will use this information.

5 TikTok Marketing Best Practices

TikTok marketing is continuously evolving, and staying ahead of the curve is crucial for brands. Here are five best practices to make your TikTok campaigns stand out in 2024:

1. Embrace Authenticity

Authenticity resonates on TikTok. Create content that showcases your brand’s personality and values genuinely. Let your audience see the real people behind your brand for a more personal connection.

2. Leverage Trending Sounds and Hashtags

Jump on trending sounds and hashtags to boost your content’s visibility. TikTok’s algorithm favors content that taps into current trends, increasing the chances of virality and engagement.

3. Collaborate with Influencers

Partner with influencers who align with your brand to reach a wider audience. Influencers can help amplify your message and bring a fresh perspective to your content.

4. Engage with Your Community

Engagement is key on TikTok. Respond to comments, participate in challenges, and encourage user-generated content to build a community around your brand.

5. Optimize for Short Attention Spans

Keep your content concise and impactful. With TikTok’s fast-paced environment, capturing attention quickly is essential. Aim for punchy, clear messages that leave a lasting impression.