Nowadays, everyone and their mother use social media when it comes to advertising.
This last year, however, giants like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram had to witness a significant decline in overall percentage in time spent.
First, Twitter lost about 2 million users causing their stock to close down by 14 percent. Then, Facebook restricted their ads for business accounts in December to later tweak them again in February triggering a 24% overall decline in time spent per person.
What was next? Instagram. After the January update (it allows only 10% of one’s audience view newly posted content and then judging by the gained engagement and likability decide if it’s worth showing to the rest 90%), everybody’s views, engagement and following plummeted.
Why, you may ask? Reasons may differ, but more or less it all comes down to one thing – algorithm changes. Now, that’s great that worldwide popular platforms try to sort out spammers and irrelevant content, but what are the methods to that madness and how do we all keep afloat and do we even need that? Good question!
Social media outlets are a way for you to instantly connect with your existing and potential clients and even though lately everything seems to be heading downhill, now is not the time to give up on it.
Change your strategy, get personal. Now, like never before, it’s all about community.
1. FIND A COMMUNITY, STICK WITH IT
Every niche has its own community on different social media platforms. Don’t avoid an open door thinking you will do better on your own. This is a great opportunity to learn news and updates, pick up some useful advice, share your and get other’s opinions, find best suitable solutions for any arising problem, get acquainted with other members or simply make yourself known. Don’t blind your eyes, as “Power is gained by sharing knowledge, not hoarding it”.
2. QUALITY OVER QUANTITY
Most of us fall into the trap of thinking more is better and to a certain extent it is true – people would rather feel a part of the crowd when searching for a business to trust. Feels more trustworthy and secure, doesn’t it? However, this won’t work for the ways new algorithms are set up as most of those followers don’t hold real value to your brand and their likes don’t correspond to a line of revenue, nor do they correspond to a level of brand awareness. Therefore the focus should be not on the amount of people but on the type. People who are truly interested in your content will engage, share and attract more like-minded people. TAGS, HASHTAGS, MENTIONS, EVERYTHING – use them, but don’t use them blindly. Be precise, considerate and straight to the point, though don’t despise the opportunity. If you’re on Twitter, try to make it in the “in case you missed it” block. No, it’s not annoying, it’s networking.
3. ENGAGE FOLLOWERS
That being said, attracting the right followers won’t ensure their engagement with your content unless you give them the opportunity to do so. Shake it up: ask questions, create polls, quizzes, surveys, feedback forms, encourage interaction in the comments and most importantly – ENGAGE IN IT YOURSELF. Demand breeds supply, remember? One thing though, – if you still clickbait or engagement bait (e.g. tag 3 friends if you relate) – stop that right now. Platforms like Facebook have previously stated to be outsourcing and demoting such posts
4. VISUALS
We talked about it once in our TIPS TO GET MORE POTENTIAL CLIENTS TO YOUR WEBSITE post, but utilize all the visual aspects of any given social media be it photo, video, boomerang, gifs or cinemagraphs. If your content doesn’t catch the eye, be it absolutely groundbreaking news, incredibly useful tips or dialogue-sparking questions, it’s unshareable.
5. LEARN FROM SUCCESSORS
– as simple as that. 😉 Just don’t lose yourself in pursuit of blindly copying whatever they did. Learn, but make your own path.
6. KNOW YOUR STATS
Remember those apps that show you if people have followed you back, which hashtags are trending, etc? Well, they might might be on their way out. Facebook has already put new restrictions on data uploaded for custom audiences, re-assessed the existing access apps, removed third-party providers supplemental information from their internal ad targeting, and made their “Insights” the best way to know your stats.
Now, over the weekend, Instagram changed its API rate limits. Scaling back the amount of data developers can access at once means they followed Facebook steps and are knocking those tracing apps out from the market.
The question now, is it going to be easier to track your engagement from now on or will it be just another headache to get used to?
BONUS
Don’t stray away from small promotions and boosts – want it or not it’s one way to let your potential audience discover you. It all depends on the platform of your choosing, of course.
Many people completely underestimate ads and promotions on social platforms, especially Facebook. Even though the latest changes caused it to lose a part of their audience, it’s still the biggest social network being the first one to surpass 1 billion registered accounts and currently sit at 2.2 billion monthly active users.
😉
