Globally, over 3.6bn people use social media for more than two hours a day. The sheer number of people using social networks has catapulted this tactic to become one of the most important elements of a modern marketing strategy.
Since the first network was founded in 1997, the social media landscape has grown at a pace, however whilst it’s grown, it’s changed rapidly too. Facebook was launched in 2005, and since then, many have been unable to keep up.
With the number of social media users projected to hit 4.41bn by 2025, it’s crucial to understand how to use social media for marketing, as it doesn’t look like the trend will be changing any time soon.
When curating social media content for business, several strategy models have been devised to help define what businesses say, and do, on their social media accounts. It’s hoped that using these structures, businesses will achieve follower growth, improved engagement, and more customer conversions.
In this post, we dig into the theories of posting on social media for business to give some inspiration for curating a successful social media strategy that delivers on your goals.
Social Media Strategy: The Three R’s
This principle is based on the theory that social media marketing should be focused on three things: reach, repetition, and relevance. It is believed that keeping your mind focused on these three factors will help you grow a loyal, engaged following alongside a viable, trustworthy brand.
Social Media Strategy: The 3-2-1 Schedule
This strategy is quick and easy to set up, as the name suggests, it comprises of 3 tweets, to two Facebook updates, to one blog post. This can be structured daily, weekly, or monthly, and is understood to help you keep your customers engaged with your accounts.
Social Media Strategy: The 5-3-2 Schedule
Another simple concept is the 5-3-2 schedule. The theory is, that out of 10 social media posts, five should be content created by others – relevant to your audience, three should be content from your business (but not selling your products), and two should be something personable and non-work related, to help you humanise yourself or your brand.
The idea is that this structure will help you focus more on your audience than yourself, and humanise your account, even if it’s a branded channel.
Social Media Strategy: The 80/20 rule
The basic theory of this rule is that 80% of your posts should entertain or educate and 20% should be selling your products/service.
It’s founded on the notion that people use social media to be, well, social. They don’t want to be subjected to a constant stream of adverts. By using this technique, you should avoid annoying your audience with irrelevant content.
Social Media Strategy: The 4-1-1 rule
Similar to the 80/20 rule, this rule states that for every six posts on your social channels, four should be entertaining or educational, one should be a soft sell and one should be a hard sell.
Social Media Strategy: Posting frequency
This theory uses the idea that a regular posting frequency will keep your audience engaged with your content. Each network has its own optimal frequency, 3 – 7 times per week on Instagram, 1-2 times per day on Facebook, 1-5 tweets per day on Twitter and 1 – 5 updates on LinkedIn every day.
Seems like a lot, huh?
Social Media Strategy: Hashtags
Previously known as the pound sign, the hashtag (#) blew up in popularity when Twitter first burst into our consciousness back in 2006. The belief is that mastering the use of hashtags will boost the discoverability of your content.
Just like the posting frequency theory, each network boasts its own optimal number of hashtags to be used per post. Twitter needs only 1-3 hashtags; Facebook doesn’t seem to like hashtags at all, and Instagram recommends a whopping 11 or more hashtags per post to get the most engagement.
Social Media Strategy: The rule of thirds
This theory uses the rule of thirds to divide your content delivery. 1/3 of your posts should share industry news, 1/3 should be engaging with others and 1/3 should be promoting your product or service.
Social Media Strategy: The Golden Ratio or the 30/60/10 principle
According to this principle, social media content should be distributed as follows:
- 30% owned by your brand or business
- 60% curated content from other sources
- 10% self-promotion
Apparently THIS is the sweet spot when it comes to social media content curation.
You do you.
Phew, there’s a lot of those – and this is only a handful of ideas that are currently available. However, all these techniques have one thing in common, and that is to try and ensure you’re focusing on your audience and not trying to push sales messages into their feeds at every given opportunity.
Find the social balance.
In our experience, most businesses and brands realise they need social media to help contribute to their overall goals. However, with such a sharp escalation of advertising on these platforms, users are becoming ever more adept at ‘skipping’ or completely ignoring sales messaging. As a result, brands should be intentional about how they plan to add value to their followers lives through their posting strategy.
Just like us, each business is individual, therefore it takes time to learn what works for you and your audience. We believe, maintaining a focus on sharing quality, creative, relevant content and contributing to the conversation is what social media marketing is all about. If you still have no idea where to start, not to worry, get in touch with Octima today. We’ll sit down with you over a cuppa, to review your posting schedules, and help you craft a social media strategy that works for your business.
If you need more help with your social media, take a look at our services.
