About 1 in every 4 people worldwide is currently using social media, and in the U.S., more than half of the population regularly uses at least two different social media accounts, according to data from the Pew Research Center.

While researchers have made various predictions about how fast various social media platforms will be growing this year, one thing is certain: social media is here to stay, and if your business isn’t taking advantage of marketing through social media channels, it could be losing out in a big way.

Because social media marketing has evolved significantly over the past few years – and because social media marketing is a critical part of an overall Internet marketing strategy for businesses, in this blog series, we will provide a helpful social media marketing guide that highlights the do’s, don’ts and predicted trends in this realm for the coming year.

If, however, you are ready to get some experienced, professional help running your business’ social media marketing campaign, don’t hesitate to contact Epic Web Results today.

The Do’s of Social Media Marketing

When it comes to implementing social media marketing, here’s what is important to do if you want your efforts to be successful:

  • Post consistently and frequently – To build a noticeable, significant presence in social media, you have to post to your accounts on a regular basis, and generally, the more frequently you are posting, the better.
  • Pick relevant, engaging topics – Only about 20 percent (at most) of your postings should be directly promotional for your business. The remaining posts should pertain to topics related to your business/service/products and, better yet, should be related to the more engaging issues or elements of those topics. Asking questions or asking people to share their opinions is a great, simple engagement tool that can make engaging social media posts that much more compelling to your target audience (as people usually like to share their opinions).
  • Include images and/or links when possible – Posts that include images tend to be far more engaging to users than text-only posts because visual online content can be immediately engaging (in ways that text may not be). So, include relevant images and links where possible to enrich your posts and make them as appealing as possible to your audience.
  • Time your postings appropriately – Do you know when most of your audience tends to be online? If so, timing your posts appropriately to coincide with when your target audience may be online can also be an effective way to build a strong presence for your business in social media.

Social Media Marketing: The Don’ts

While the realm of social media marketing is still relatively new and is continuing to be explored and developed (in various ways), there are some things that are known to turn off audiences and, consequently, hurt social media marketing campaigns. In particular, these don’ts of social media marketing include (but may not be limited to):

  • NOT posting back-to-back – While posting frequently is important in social media, putting up a group of posts within a few minutes of each other can hurt social media marketing efforts, as this can cause your posts to become “white noise” that people just stop seeing/reading. In other words, when posts are grouped too close together, they lose their value and impact on your potential audience.
  • NOT only reposting others’ posts – Reposting what others’ have published in their social media accounts can be a great way to connect with new people/professionals online while growing your potential audience. However, if all of your social media activity stems from reposts, you won’t be establishing a unique voice or presence for your business through your social media marketing efforts. Clearly, this is antithetical to the intentions of social media marketing and, as a result, should be avoided.
  • NOT diversifying the content of your posts – Even if your business is focused on a single, specific practice, service or product, you can still diversify your posts by adding videos, images, different links, etc. If you aren’t doing this, you probably are also having a difficult time keeping your audience engaged, which means, in turn, that your social media marketing aren’t as successful as they could be.
  • NOT including a human element in postings – People generally want to engage with other people online, rather than big corporations or faceless entities. So, be sure to keep a human element in your posts to make them touching and as engaging as possible.

Social Media Marketing: Predicted Trends for 2015

Among some of the most notable trends in social media marketing that have been predicted for 2015 and beyond are as follows:

  • Social videos will become more prominent – Short videos that tell a story, briefly educate or transmit other relevant content are expected to play a far more important role in social media marketing this year and in the future.While this can mean that you and your business get into developing and posting more videos as part of your social media marketing efforts this year, it may also mean that you should consider sharing or dipping into user-generated videos. For instance, if your social media marketing is for your law firm, user-generated video content can come in the form of testimonials.
  • So too will agile marketing – Agile marketing, which generally involves a frequent review of client trends and adapting marketing efforts to meet these trends, is another social media marketing trend expected to take a firmer hold in 2015.In particular, one of the ways that industry professionals are predicting that this social media marketing trend will become more prominent is through tying social media marketing to real-time events, external influences, etc. to get the broadest audience possible that is most likely to engage with these efforts/campaigns.
  • Mobile will become a primary focus – Mobile, like social media marketing, is here to stay, and this year industry professionals are predicting that social media marketing efforts will start shifting to consider mobile devices as their primary channels, which may also end up making geo-targeting social media posts more important this year.

Have you seen any of these social media marketing trends start to play out? Or have you noticed other emerging trends in social media marketing? Share your thoughts with us on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn.

Effective Internet Marketing Solutions at Epic Web Results

Are you ready to take your social media marketing efforts to the next level? If so, it’s time to contact the experienced professionals at Epic Web Results. Our skilled professionals are up to date with the latest advances in social media marketing, Internet marketing and SEO best practices, and we are highly adept at designing and maintaining optimized websites that will soar to the top of search engines.

Contact Us Today

To learn more about our customized Internet marketing solutions and how we can help you, contact the professionals at Epic Web Results by calling (800) 501-9724 or by emailing us using the contact form on this page.