The Anatomy of a Rock Star Social Media Post

One of the biggest challenges for any brand or startup while promoting their products or services on social media is crafting a message that drives engagement and conversions.
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One of the biggest challenges for any brand or startup while promoting their products or services on social media is crafting a message that drives engagement and conversions.

Typical questions range from challenges on getting more followers to increasing traction on the posts that are shared on social media. What one doesn't realize is that people do want to consume content. But, owing to the noise in this space, how do you make sure you stand out from your competition to engage the customer?

Here are some guidelines for some of the most popular social media networks to rock your posts and get the attention of your customer, to market or to sell them, increase click-throughs to your website or simply to get them talking about your product or service.

Twitter

Venture Capitalist and Canva evangelist Guy Kawasaki once said, "truth be told, there are only two kinds of Twitter users: those that want more followers and those that lie."

Every brand, startup or entrepreneur wants more followers for your Twitter profiles. And why not, the more the followers, the more the chances of engagement, as not every one of them can be expected to respond each time you send out an update.

So here are some guidelines to rock your Twitter tweets to get more followers, replies and retweets.

  • Make sure your Twitter profile is complete with a profile picture, a concise bio, a link to your product page or blog and an attractive cover image that conveys your brand's proposition.
  • Share content that's interesting, funny or is thought provoking. The content that you share should offer practical tips or presenting an opinion or personal experience. Use questions, facts and figures.
  • Make room for people to Retweet. Most often, Tweets don't get retweeted (specially when someone wants to add their two bits to it) simply because there isn't enough room! The shorter the tweet, the better.
  • Shorten your posts, but don't sacrifice grammar for it. Avoid abbreviations.
  • Shorten your links using link-shortening services such as bit.ly. These are usually more attractive in a post.
  • Include an image in your Tweet. The image can be from your post or something that best describes your message. Images always get more clicks then simple texts. You can do the same with video.
  • Don't just talk but communicate. Talk to your followers and influencers. Engage them in a conversation.
  • The more important of all, Tweet often and if possible, Tweet around the same time everyday. Don't let your Twitter profile go silent.

Facebook

Facebook is an equally challenging medium to build a social following and keeping those followers engaged. There are many products and services that have leveraged Facebook to capture mind-space, increase click-through to their website and drive conversions.

Here's what you need to do to make sure you stay ahead in the game.

  • Post content to a broader set from your target audience. The idea is that the content should appeal to everyone. So with each post, target different sections of your segment.
  • Keep your posts positive and visual to a large extent. Images drive engagements and clicks. Drive a bit of curiosity through the content to increase clicks.
  • Engage with your fans and build a relationship through conversations.
  • Post regularly, but not too frequently. Twice or thrice a day is the optimum frequency.
  • Post at times when your target audience is most active on Facebook. This could mean posting at times outside of your business hours.
  • Ask questions and seek feedback from your fans. Get your fans to contribute more to your Fan page. Don't restrict it only to what you want to communicate.

LinkedIn

The least explored social media channel for building engagement and driving conversions is LinkedIn. But what many don't know is that LinkedIn generated the highest visitor-to-lead conversion rate at 2.74 percent, almost three times higher (277 percent) than both Twitter (.69 percent) and Facebook (.77 percent), a recent Hubspot study mentions.

Here are the guidelines for successful engagement and conversions using LinkedIn.

  • Post regularly, but not too frequently, just like on Facebook. Twice to thrice everyday is optimum.
  • Needless to say, post awesome, relevant content that resonates with your target audience. The boarder the content, the better connect with across segments. Go niche every once in a while.
  • LinkedIn has recently opened up its content publishing platform to general public. When you publish a post on LinkedIn, your content is automatically shared with your connections, and later with your followers. Actively and regularly publish articles on LinkedIn, just like you would on your blog.
  • Set a frequency, at the very least you should be posting once a week. Don't publish more than twice a week.
  • User pictures for your article lead in and also through the articles. Images drive more engagement.
  • End your article with a call to action and a short bio with links to websites you want to drive traffic to.
  • Always engage with people that comment on your posts and articles.

There are other social media channels that you could potentially consider, but start small and with the ones that are the most effective. Once you've established yourself on these, you can then go on to other networks such as YouTube and Pinterest. But that's another post!

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