In this article, I will share some tips on how you can get a better reach on LinkedIn and Facebook by creating optimized social media marketing plans.
Creating content for social media and publishing posts is not enough. The next step of reaching out with the content to the target group is equally important.
It does not matter how good the content is if nobody sees it. And unfortunately, that’s the truth faced by most businesses that are not sponsoring their posts or working towards maximizing their organic reach.
The method for boosting your reach can be summarized in two parts:
- Scale up your content so you get more out of it
- Maximize your potential to reach more people with your content
This article will guide you through these two parts and give you some ideas on how social media marketing can be done on your own. You would be able to improve your reach, educate your team and streamline your work.
If you feel that you do not really know the core concepts or lack the fundamentals, you can find more information in this article.
Scale Up Your Social Media Marketing Content
3 Posts Instead Of 1 For Increased Visibility
In order for your content to be shown to as many people as possible, you should follow a systematic approach.
For each piece of content that you share on social media, it is recommended to create three different posts.
It could be done preferably in three different formats because it increases the engagement with your audience. This gives your content a better chance to be seen on the platform.
It doesn’t take that much effort if you do it at the same time. It is well worth the effort if you consider the potential results.
Think about the following scenario:
You’ve been sitting all day and writing a long article, doing all the research, and making the necessary changes. When you are satisfied, you publish the article on the blog that you have on your website.
Now it’s time for the world to see it! You now get on your company page on Facebook. You create content where you post a link to the article and write a short text about why the article is interesting and should be read.
Then you go on to your company page on LinkedIn and do the same thing. However, this time, you simply copy the text that was written on Facebook. The process is simple and does not take that much time.
A few hours later, you curiously check the company page to see how many people have read your content.
You notice with disappointment that your article only received 200 views and 3 likes. Only 6 people have clicked on your article, and (maybe) read it. This is probably not the result you were hoping for when you created the article.
Of course, the importance of writing the article from an SEO perspective must be mentioned here. This way it becomes visible to those who search for the problem that your article addresses. But it is a chapter of its own that you can read about here in this article.
So back to the post. What happens if you spend an extra half hour at the same time as you share your article, to create 2 more posts to highlight your article? That is 30 extra minutes that could possibly give you three times more reach.
Social Media Strategies For Creating More Content
Here are some examples of how you can optimize your presence on social media by creating more posts in different formats:
- You can create a longer text post for the content that you share via your personal page. It tends to be more effective because people are likely to read longer posts from a personal sender. It could be your insights, thoughts, or tips based on your role and skills.
- If your content consists of an illustration that perhaps explains a comprehensive topic, you can create content in a descriptive format. You may include some quick tips that you think are important to explain the concept. You can also transform explanatory content into an illustration.
- If there is something interesting that you want to highlight, such as a quote or a fact, you can create an image overlay with the text.
- You can make a simple video with multiple images. A quick way to do it is using Keynote or PowerPoint. Use animations and transitions to get the right flow for your message. Export to an mp4 format and upload it as a video in the post.
- You can turn an illustration into a different variant to give new life to the content.
- You can choose to add links to some of the posts but not all. The posts that take visitors away from the platform are generally not liked by the algorithms and thus get lower reach and poorer distribution.
One article = 3 different posts = 3 times greater distribution of your content
The more consistent you are with this method, the better you get at it. With some practice, it might only take a few extra minutes to create these posts.
Maybe there is a certain angle or section of the content that has a stronger connection with your professional role that your network might be interested in.
Take the time to think and then write the text based on what spontaneously comes to you. It is more important for the content to feel genuine and interesting than coming up with something that is well-polished.
Get More Out Of Your Old Optimized Social Media Content
The above approach works just as well on existing (so not entirely new) content. As long as it is relevant and interesting for your target group, you can ensure that it reaches more people by creating new posts based on it.
If there are certain aspects of the content that needs to be updated to make it relevant, you should do so by looking through it first.
For example, say you have a guide that is popular among your target audience. You may have shared the guide before on the company page on social media, where you linked to it, or shared the entire PDF in the post.
Then you have a good opportunity for creating more posts that increase visibility. You get more people to engage on social media with the content of the guide.
Depending on how comprehensive your guide is and how creative you are, you can create a variety of posts for your social media optimization based on the guide’s content.
You could do the following:
- Bring out the guide again and look at it with a fresh pair of eyes. How many parts are there in the guide? Which sections could you break out of the guide to create separate posts? What would be appropriate to make a short video about? What could you highlight and write a new text about?
- Is there any part of the guide that you could showcase in a different way? Keep in mind that not all posts need to be that comprehensive. A post could even be just a sentence. For example, a statement, a quote, or facts from a survey that builds trust in the content of the guide.
- Is there an illustration in the guide that you can break down to create multiple posts?
Don’t Get Caught Up Trying To Include Everything
It’s about arousing curiosity and interest in getting more people to consume your social media marketing content.
Of course, you want everyone to read your entire article or guide that you put so much time and effort into creating.
But the more people who are reached by at least parts of that content, the higher the chance of them consuming the rest of the content. So be patient and keep in mind that it is your target audience that you are creating the content for – not for yourself.
As I had mentioned earlier, different people appreciate different formats when it comes to receiving information.
Some like to read long texts; others want a visual format that can be quickly absorbed. Another reason for creating content in different formats is that it helps to stand out from all the noise.
Find A New Angle To Create Content
This technique may need some practice but is very valuable in bringing out greater value and depth from the existing content. It is based on finding a new angle of approach to the content that was created before.
- Much of the content is usually built from a business or product perspective. Try to convert content that is based on the company’s angle to the customer’s point of view. Think of the person on the other side and rewrite an existing piece of content to make it more customer-centric instead of product-focused.
- Generic content can be made more specific to the industry or role to get higher engagement from a smaller audience.
- Write content that conveys an emotion. This is part of storytelling and something that is very effective for connecting with the audience.
- Create posts where you share your unique knowledge, thoughts, and perspectives. It could be special skills that you have gained and wanted to share or concrete tips on how to do something better. If it feels unnatural, remember that your content is not created with the purpose of reaching the audience. But you have something that you know more people will benefit from learning about. By including it in the content, you build trust and add great value to your audience.
- Discover new insights to add value. Critique your work and ask yourself different questions when reading the content. “Why is it good? What happens otherwise? What is the alternative?” By asking these questions, you can discover new insights, convincing arguments, and aspects that interest your target audience.
Maximize The Reach With The Help Of Your Team Members
If you are hooked on the idea of scaling up the content to increase visibility, then this is where it gets really interesting. This is the part that can make a huge difference in reaching your audience.
For example, let’s say that you have a company page with 300 followers on LinkedIn and a similar number on Facebook.
With such a low volume, it is difficult to get a large organic reach for your content. However, your employees may have accounts on platforms that are probably active.
Many of them primarily use LinkedIn to network and find prospects. Depending on your business, you can certainly identify some employees who see the value in helping you spread the content.
- Make it easy for them to share your content. Send them links to the content on your website or to the posts created on the company page. Give them suggestions on what to write to encourage sharing. You could also provide them with some ideas so that they can put together something more personal.
- Explain the purpose of the content and the benefit of working together to promote the company’s brand.
- Set up a clear structure and process for how you would be able to help in sharing content.
- Help your employees understand how to use the platform if they have not used it before.
- Follow up with data. It is important for everyone to see the results obtained from investing time and energy in promoting the content. So, collect data on the number of people you have potentially reached with the content that you have helped to share. Everyone can contribute to increasing the number of views and engagement by sharing the post within their network. When you add these together, you get the total potential reach.
Turn Your Employees Into Brand Ambassadors
The employees’ personal profiles are valuable in maximizing the reach of your content. It is also of great importance for building relationships, gaining trust, and a greater commitment to your brand.
The company’s values, competence, and offer play an important role in influencing the employees. What is said by a person is generally perceived as much more credible than what is said by a company.
By combining the company’s content with the employees’ own thoughts, insights, and additions (based on their role, experience, and skills), the content gets a different perspective. It also varies based on different angles, which means that the content can connect with more people.
Another benefit is that you market the company in different networks than those who have actively chosen to follow the company.
Business relationships are built between people. So, by linking the personal brands to the company, you get a greater impact on your communication. It strengthens both the company and the personal brands.
This is an important part of building a brand that attracts future employees. A commitment from the employees shows pride in the company’s brand, which strengthens the image of the company as a valued employer.
The strategy of turning your employees into ambassadors is also called employee advocacy. If you want to learn more about it, I suggest you read this article on LinkedIn’s marketing blog.
Optimized Social Media Operations
Smart Publishing
If you have been spending a lot of time to optimize social media campaigns, you could be taking advantage of tools that help you streamline the process and keep track of your content.
To make it easy for you to manage the publishing, you can take advantage of the scheduling feature. This way, you can create multiple posts on social media at the same time, which is quite time-efficient.
HubSpot has a powerful solution for this, but if you do not have access to HubSpot, you can use other optimization tools that offer flexible scheduling, such as Hootsuite, Buffer, or Falcon.
Best Time For Social Media Post
It may be easiest for you to publish on LinkedIn and Facebook at the same time, but it will diminish your reach. This is because LinkedIn and Facebook are used in different ways, and at various times during the day and week.
There are some statistics on when it is best to publish your content on the various platforms, but you get the best results if you analyze your own target group and adapt your publishing accordingly.
By spreading out publishing throughout the day, you also increase the probability of your target group being reached several times by your content.
First on LinkedIn during the day when they work with the platform as a sales tool and for building relationships with their prospects. Then later in the afternoon when they visit Facebook for some entertainment and contact with their network of family and friends.
Your brand would receive attention on multiple occasions as the target group gets involved in different activities throughout the day.
Publish Regularly
You don’t have to publish on social media every day, even though both LinkedIn and Facebook recommend doing it to get better engagement.
However, you should be consistent with the quality of your content. Try to maintain the continuity of your posts and avoid gaps during which you do not post anything at all.
It will be easier to manage your efforts if you are proactive and plan your posts on social media ahead of time. It is important to have a structure in your planning. If not, when you take the step to scale up your content, it can be overwhelming to get all parts of the process together.
When you scale up your content, you can look at creating all posts at once and scheduling them with your preferred tool.
Conducting Surveys
It can be beneficial to conduct surveys and there is a feature for it on LinkedIn that you can use. It is quite limited, as it only allows 4 options for answers where each option is limited to a maximum of 30 characters. The question is also limited to 140 characters, so you need to get creative in coming up with short and concise questions and answers.
This is a great way to get new insights, as you have the opportunity to capture feedback from your audience. If you frame the questions and the options correctly, you will gain valuable insights that you can incorporate to create content that helps your potential customers.
For example, you can:
- receive quick feedback on a hypothesis
- get an indication of the options your target group prefers
- get to know a little more about the driving forces behind the target group
Engagement = Greater Reach
The engagement you get on your content – in the form of likes, shares, clicks, and comments – has a big impact on your reach. This is because the algorithms that control how your content is displayed on the platform base their assessment of your content on the engagement it generates with the users.
The algorithms display your post to a small section of users and then read the engagement it receives within an hour of publication. And based on that assessment, your content will get some visibility on the platform.
In other words, it is important to create content that is liked by users and to put in the work to drive engagement.
Here are some things you can do to improve the engagement:
Customize Your Message And Content
It can be done based on your insights about the buyer personas and the target audience you want to reach with your content.
- What do they want to read about?
- Do they have any challenges that you can help them solve?
- What questions do you hear customers ask when they get in touch with your company?
- Are there any common problems with customer service? What type of content does your target audience seem to resonate with – both in your posts and those of your competitors?
You can also get inspiration from various forums, so feel free to look around.
Vary The Format Of Your Content
Different people like to consume different types of content, so vary the format of your posts on social media.
3 optimization examples of different formats that you can create:
- A post with a picture and short message
- A post with longer text and a link
- Post with a video
Drive Engagement Yourself
You can get people to engage on social media by:
- asking a question in your post
- tagging an employee or a customer
- commenting on your own posts and those of others
Show that you are available to answer questions on topics that build trust with your potential customers.
Publish When Your Audience Is Active On The Platform
You should publish the posts not only when it suits you. Since the first hour is so important after you publish a post, you have to be careful in timing your posts.
Think Long-Term And Build A Brand
You will receive greater engagement if you have a well-known and respected brand. The way to get there is to make sure that your content communicates and conveys the brand properly.
Remember to be consistent with the tone, design profile, and quality of your content.
Create a long-term strategy for your social media and ensure that all your communication channels and the content serve a common goal. This way, you ensure content collaboration and clear communication of the brand.
Reach Is Not Everything
Although reach is necessary for increasing visibility for your content and thereby building brand awareness, it is more important that you reach the right people with your messages.
The core of Inbound marketing is following a customer-centric approach. This involves helping potential customers through their buying journey and taking them all the way to becoming ambassadors for your company.
As I had mentioned earlier, the most important factor to get people to engage on social media is to adapt the content for your target group. But beyond that, here are a few more things to reach the right people with your content:
- Go through the company’s followers. Is your target group following you? Invite potential customers to follow you after you have engaged with their content. Get inspiration from market leaders, or search through content that others share. What is the best for your target group?
- By tagging customers and business partners, you gain visibility in valuable networks where you might otherwise have no presence. A smart way to do this is by mentioning the customer case on social media and tagging the customer (company name). You can also include your contact person who probably has other marketing managers or CEOs in their network.
Focus on creating optimized social media marketing content (that educates, helps, or inspires your target audience) and work on getting it in front of the right people.