10 Hacks Every Social Media Marketer Should Know

Social media marketers have to constantly engage with their community and create content, but their role doesn't, or rather shouldn't, stop there! If you are actively using social media platform as a channel to drive leads and conversions to your sales funnel, then you definitely need to know these 10 hacks for social media marketers and add them to your weekly routine pronto.

1. Check your analytics

Doing a weekly check-in of your analytics and doing a quick report is a great way to see the progress you are making, challenges that have risen and any gaps that need to be optimized. This helps you understand what content produced the best results, and what returned the least ROI for the business. When you can determine this, you are able to customize content and the strategy as a whole to ultimately have better growth and success on social media.

2. Read industry reports

Stay on top of industry reports, social media news and best practices so you can adapt and pivot your strategy if required. Consuming the latest news and trends will also give you new ideas to test and work into the strategy, and you can learn more about what is and isn't working in the social media space right now.  Some great resources include Social Media Examiner, NewsCred and of course the Scrunch blog.

3. Keep your apps up to date

As the social media landscape constantly changes, new algorithms are introduced and new features are rolled out all of the time, it is important to make sure you update of your apps weekly to avoid any bugs and make use of the new features. You might also find that there are new features that can complement your social media strategy and help with content creation, reporting, ROI analysis, engagement and more.

4. Discover new trends

It's important to keep an eye on what is happening in the world, in your industry and what is trending within your target market. You must have a handle on what is hot, and what is not, to ensure you are hitting consumers with social media marketing that impacts them, and influences their purchase decisions. Take advantage of trends, from language and hashtags to trending textiles (for example, marble and copper right now) to things that are "cool" right now (we're looking at you Pokemon Go). This will help your brand stay relevant and make your content appeal to your target market.

5. Create high-quality content

Every week you should be creating lots of fresh new content for your social media strategy to share across your platforms. Use your newly discovered analytics as a guide to what content you should be developing and allocate time each week to content creation. As is the case on many a social media platform, an aesthetically pleasing image is the key to success, so make sure your content is professional and engaging first and foremost. For more tips on how you can create high-quality, engaging content, check out this blog post from a couple of months back.

6. Optimise hashtags

Mix up your hashtags every week to avoid only being seen by the same audience, as hashtags are a popular content discovery tool for people who are interested in a topic. By switching it up, you will have the ability to target a different audience and increase your organic reach across the social media platform (hashtags are best used for Twitter and Instagram). Social media marketers often use the same hashtags, week in and week out, however, this can stall growth and they are missing the opportunity to tap into different audiences. When using hashtags on Instagram, use 30 of the most relevant tags and steer clear of generic and spam ones like #tagsforlikes etc and only use hashtags that are relevant to that specific piece of content. On Twitter, only use a maximum of two hashtags and choose them wisely.

7. Test new strategies

Do something different and think creatively when it comes to testing new strategies. They won't all be the right fit for your social media strategy and audience, but you may just find something that can have a huge impact on the overall success of your social media strategy. Some things to test include posting times, hashtags, copy, content aesthetic, audience targeting and platform.

8. Interact with other users

Put some time into interacting with other social media users in your industry and building community and conversation. It's important to actively engage with consumers, influencers and thought leaders in your space, but don't target them with a sales message on social media! Engage with their content and write a comment that is relevant and thoughtful, and build the conversation from there. As a result, you'll have more reach and exposure to linked-minded social media users, which ultimately drives them back to your platforms and to the top of your sales funnel as a new fan of your business.

9. Consider a paid model

As algorithms constantly changeand nothing remains consistent on social media with a free model, consider moving to a paid social media model and invest in your social media strategy if you really want to see it drive epic traffic, referrals and leads to your eCommerce platform. It's important to remember that nothing is guaranteed on social media (especially when you are not investing in ads), so test a paid strategy and ensure there is potential for ROI before jumping into it.

10. Subscribe to the Scrunch newsletter

Okay, okay, this one may be a little biased, but we think you should definitely subscribe to our weekly digital marketing newsletter if you want the latest on social media marketing and how it has an impact on your influencer marketing activities. If you want to subscribe, hit the subscribe button in the top right corner of this page and pop in your email address. You don't want to miss this one!

Follow these 10 social media hacks and make your social media work hard for you and your business. If you have another hack to share, leave a comment below - we'd love to hear from you.