So much to do on social media, then niggling time. And so many ways to do information technology, too. Some right, some non-so-correct.

Merely don't worry, we've got yous covered with the post-obit must-follow social media best practices.

Bonus: Read the step-by-step social media strategy guide with pro tips on how to abound your social media presence.

14 social media all-time practices for 2020

ane. Larn everything you can about your audience

The first social media all-time do?

If you don't know who your audition is, you tin't give them what they desire. And then they won't give yous what you want (their business organization).

Who are you trying to connect with?

Millennials, single moms, kids with kanines? That'south a start, merely become as specific as you tin can to all-time engage them. Practise the research and rely more on data, less on your gut.

Get clear nigh your electric current customers, too. So y'all tin can go find and make new ones with the same traits. Such every bit:

  • Their age
  • Where they live
  • What languages they speak
  • How much they earn
  • How much they spend
  • What they buy
  • What they practise in their spare fourth dimension
  • What stage of life they're in (student, parent, retiree)

Other tactics to consider for learning about your audience include:

  • Analyze website and social media analytics
  • Be clear about the value for your products and services
  • Create a target market statement
  • Test your social ads on your target market
  • Lather, rinse, repeat—to learn new means and ways over time

Want to dive deeper into this topic? We have a guide to conducting audience research that includes a template to assist you lot build customer/audience personas.

2. Choose which networks to apply (and which to ignore)

Because also many marketers spread themselves too thin across too many networks.

How do yous determine which networks to evidence up and share on?

Research the demographics. This will help you determine which networks to use—and which to lose. These are the kinds of insights you should be looking for:

Instagram demographics

  • A billion users, 500 1000000 of them active every day
  • 71% of Americans between 18 and 24 use this network
  • 43% African Americans, 38% Hispanic, 32% white for U.Due south users

Facebook Demographics

  • More active monthly users than whatsoever one country'south population
  • 1.4 billion daily users, and 2.xiii billion monthly ones
  • 25-34 year olds are the biggest segment for U.South. users
  • 75% of U.S. adults rake in $75,000+

Twitter demographics

  • Big. Political. Platform. More and then than the others.
  • 330 million active monthly users
  • 45% of new users have college degrees

I think you get the idea.

Know more about your audience and who uses what social network and combine those ii data points to better sell your brand.

3. Have a plan

Take you created a social media strategy, summarizing what you want to do and achieve on social media?

Yes? Good job.

No? You should. Why?

To know whether you're succeeding or failing for every post, share, like and comment.

This guide will walk you lot through each step of crafting a winning program. But hither are the highlights:

Set goals

Otherwise, how practise you know what'due south working, what's not, and what to change as y'all create and share content? And, runway useful metrics. Here's a few.

social media strategy goals

Social media KPIs are also worth tracking.

Conduct an inspect

Gather and examine what'southward working and what'south not on social media in one place. This volition help you plan what to practise more than of, what to improve, and what to stop. Easily see:

  • Who you lot're connecting with
  • Who's connecting with you
  • Which networks your target audience uses
  • How your brand compares with your competitors

And… ask yourself a few (honest) questions nearly your social accounts:

  • Is your audition here?
  • If so, how are they using this platform?
  • Does this help you achieve your business goals?

Use your answers to decide which accounts are worth keeping, or ditching.

Need assistance setting upward your audit? We've got a template for you.

iv. Keep an eye on the competition

Because if yous don't, they'll get the upper manus. Also, to larn from what they're doing, to help you decide what yous should (and shouldn't) be doing. Why reinvent when you can circumvent?

For your social media competitors you desire to know…

  • Who they are
  • Where they are
  • What they're doing
  • What they did before
  • How well they're doing what they're doing
  • Any threats to your business organization
  • Identify gaps in your ain strategy

Do some intel to ask and respond…

  • What networks are they on?
  • How large is their audience?
  • How often do they post?
  • How much do they engage (shares, likes, and comments)?
  • What are they good at?
  • And non and so expert at?
  • What threats practice they pose?

At that place are tools and techniques to help with this (and a template to organize your findings).

Competitors can give cracking inspiration for your social media activities.

Heck, I've contacted and befriended many copywriters. Nosotros share war stories about losses and victories, along with tools, approaches, and ideas for doing and existence better.

You lot could (should), too.

five. Listen for mentions of your brand

Know what people are saying on your social media channels.

If y'all practice—you tin track, analyze, and respond to those conversations. If you don't—you're missing out on valuable insights for your business organization.

Social listening is a 2-footstep process.

i. Monitor channels to capture mentions of your brand, competitors, production, and relevant keywords.
2. Analyze those mentions to place what yous should do next.

Like… Respond to a happy customer (or to a troll). Test 1 entrada against another. Or significantly shift your brand voice and tone.

Larn how people call up well-nigh you, compared to the competition. Is a competitor taking a beating in the press? Could that be a golden moment to share, evidence, or say?

Crush the contest to detect and resolve pain points. Is someone talking about their feature that sucks? Can you lot speedily add together a new characteristic that doesn't?

Identify influencers and advocates. Is someone out there saying something superb about you all? Maybe information technology'south time to interact with them.

Listen, learn, and earn.

Here are some tools to assistance you mind on social.

6. Monitor conversations that are relevant to your manufacture

Similar social listening, social monitoring is near knowing what people think of your brand.

There are tools to help you know: who'due south mentioneding your brand, using which hashtags, and other trends in your industry.

Recall of social monitoring equally the foundation for social listening. Monitor to learn from the by. Listen to create your future.

Does this moving picture help?

social media monitoring versus social media listening

Most those tools? Here are some of the best social monitoring tools we found or used.

7. Establish your social media voice and tone

I'thou going to blatantly plagiarize the start of this piece—word for give-and-take.

Information technology's okay, I wrote it.

Every time y'all talk, write, design, post, respond, launch, thank, and connect with others… you're exercising your brand voice.

Every. Time.

Whether you call back almost it or not.

People are building up an impression in their mind for all the means you appear—online, on phase, on the phone, or in person.

Don't y'all remember it's best to exist deliberate about all that?

To convey the voice and vibe for your ongoing bulletin?

So that your fans, followers, readers, listeners, leads, prospects, and customers 'get it'?

Here are some ways.

Observe your adjectives to develop the voice and vibe for your brand's personality. I supplied a listing for you to start (and end) with.

Write like you talk by avoiding jargon. Jargon requires brain calories for readers to translate. But they won't, they'll but click elsewhere.

Write from the reader'south perspective, to make them, not y'all, the hero in the story. Be clear then readers will know what they will get from what you practise.

Driblet the drama. Avoid sensational headlines. E'er exist articulate over clever. This forces you to empathise the reader and write more to them.

There are more than tips and examples in the full post.

8. Follow the social media 'Rule of Thirds'

Why?

Commencement, allow'southward talk about what to share.

  • ⅓ share posts to promote your business concern, convert readers, and generate profits
  • ⅓ share posts of ideas from influencers in your industry (or like-minded businesses)
  • ⅓ share posts of personal stories to build your brand

At present, back to the why (for the ⅔ sharing).

Sharing out content shows your followers…

  • Y'all know your manufacture
  • You're collaborative
  • Where you're positioned within the industry

Elementary, right?

nine. Reply to all comments and @mentions—promptly

Because when y'all don't, it makes y'all await lazy, unwilling, and all well-nigh yous.

And so go off your podium and into the dinner party—by welcoming, listening, and encouraging conversation. Similar a expert host.

When you're on a podium, y'all orate—one-manner communication.

Merely at a dinner political party, you converse—ii-mode communication.

Social media + comments + mentions + respond at present (not afterward) = a relationship.

Hither'due south an entire guide to social media engagement to form healthier relationships for your social media accounts.

10. Don't repost the same message across networks

I get information technology, posting the same (verbal) message across your social channels seems efficient. Why reinvent (or rewrite) a piece multiple times versus in one case?

But, like tip number 9 above, reposting is another way to look lazy and sloppy.

Instead, craft a new message for every network and postal service.

Aye, it takes more fourth dimension and piece of work. But maybe not as much as you recall. No need to kickoff from scratch—only do make some tweaks.

Information technology will pay off because people volition come across you lot as a brand that cares what information technology shares.

And information technology shows that yous're paying attention.

Optimize content for each network. Tailor some things for your channel. Use the right vocabulary for your captions. Information technology's piece of cake to imagine words that work on Snapchat may not have a adventure on LinkedIn. And apply the right (vs same) hashtags for each platform.

If not, you'll expect spammy.

Don't over post. Mail service regularly? Admittedly. Overposting may be difficult to practise on Twitter, but like shooting fish in a barrel to do for Facebook and LinkedIn. Different audiences have unlike tastes. Know them all to appeal to them all.

Ignore some channels. Just do. Considering sharing a cool new product might rock on Pinterest, but flop on LinkedIn.

xi. Employ data to determine when and how frequently to mail service

When is the right fourth dimension to post?

It depends on the social network. People might be on LinkedIn during regular workday hours, just Instagram is more of a leisure fourth dimension platform.

Nosotros accept an entire article defended to finding the all-time times to mail on social media. It's back past data from the all-time brands on social.

At present, how often should you lot post?

That's hard to say, in general. But, create social media reports to runway results for who'southward engaging with your brand and posts. So yous can make your choices based on data, not hunches.

12. A/B test your messaging

A/B testing (a.k.a. divide testing) allows you to test small variations of your messaging to larn what works best for your audience.

How?

  • Separate your audience into two random groups
  • Show a different message variation to each group
  • Compare the responses to your chosen metrics

They key—change ane affair at a time. Otherwise, you're back to guessing if you alter multiple aspects of the message.

What to examination, you lot might be thinking?

Post text. Consider some of these for your A/B testing:

  • A quote vs a key statistic
  • The length of the post
  • Employ an emoji
  • Ordered versus unordered bullets
  • Variations on punctuation
  • Tone of voice, say casual versus formal, passive versus active

Here's how Ikea did it.

Call-to-activeness. CTAs are critical, you're asking readers to take an action. Modify it up to see what works best. For case, 'Use App' versus 'Install Now'. Piece of cake to practise, easy to see results.

Use of image or video. Research shows images and videos perform best. Fine, but which of those work best? Try it and see, to go from theory to proof for your posts. For case, test:

  • Text only versus posts with an image or video
  • Regular image versus blithe GIF
  • Photos of people or products versus graphs or infographics
  • Length of video

There'south more to A/B exam. Much more. See our consummate guide.

13. Use the right tools

In that location'southward loads of tools and apps to do social media correct.

Of course, there's the major networks like Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and Instagram. Y'all need to kickoff there—at least with the ones that are right for your brand and target audience..

Then y'all can wait to apps to take your posts and content to the next level. Here's a few:

  • Planoly is a visual planner for Instagram to see your grid before you post.
  • Visme is an app to (easily) create beautiful images for your posts. No graphic blueprint experience required. Here's a guide to social media image apps.
  • Story Slicer allows you lot to cut, edit then postal service videos for Instagram, Facebook, Whatsapp, or VK stories. It's like shooting fish in a barrel to use, for the novice or pro videographer.
  • Campsite. The problem: you only get i link on your social profiles. The solution: a drove of links with images to send users to exactly the correct place.

Check out the residue of the tools to create, share, rails and adjust your social media campaigns.

14. Mensurate results and conform your strategy as needed

For your social media… Have you identified your goals? Then divers the right metrics? Same for your KPIs?

Yes? Nice one.

Then your next pace is to determine if you're earning more you're spending on social media. By gathering data from your accounts and campaigns to track and better performance—analytics.

We wrote the complete guide to using social media analytics tools.

I'll requite y'all the highlights below.

Facebook has an analytics dashboard. Use it to view likes, followers, attain and date for your pages and posts. Notice the changes earlier and later a entrada.

Facebook analytics dashboard

Desire to boost some ads, but non sure which ones? Utilise the Promotions section to figure that out. In that location's more, but you get the idea.

Twitter also has a dashboard to look at data, month-to-month. Like, top tweets, followers, and mentions. See also, engagements, impressions and promotions for your tweets for a given time period.

Twitter analytics dashboard

Twitter also shows demographics for your audience. Use this to compare your audience and how they differ.

Instagram offers analytics for business organization profiles. More than just content, gain insights about who your followers are, when they're online, and more.

Instagram analytics

For your account understand:

  • Impressions: the number of times your posts were on screen
  • Reach: the number of unique post views
  • Website Clicks: The number of clicks on the link included in your profile
  • Profile Visits: The number of times your username is clicked on

Yous'll find like dashboards for LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Snapchat.

Utilize these tools to see what's working and what'south not, so you tin can see and adjust to become more of the former.

There you go. Some tools, rules, and clues for making your all-time practices common practices.

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