How to elevate your brand with your social media strategy

Worldwide there are over 3.4 billion active users of social media platforms, which is why most business-to-business companies are taking advantage of this wide popularity of social media and creating their own presence online with the help of a social media strategy.

But, how can we use these platforms to get the best return on investment out of them? To make things a little easier, we’ve compiled our top ten tips for social media marketing success, including examples of where strategies have worked well.

Top tip #1 – Know your target audience (Inside and out)

Most of the time we know who we are trying to reach on social media, whether that be key influencers in the industry, potential leads, business partners or policymakers. It’s important to really understand what your target audience wants to see on their feeds, so you can tailor posts and content to appeal to them.

To get the most out of your social strategy, do your research on your target audience and take it from there.

Top tip #2 – Set goals (and report on them!) 

A well-defined strategy is the key to success for all social media marketing. Set some realistic goals for your strategy by asking yourself what outcomes you would like to achieve. These could range from:

• Return on investment (ROI)
• Lead generation
• Impressions, followers and engagement
• Brand awareness

Figuring out what you expect to achieve from your social media activity will help you formulate an effective and realistic strategy. Decide on a goal and work your way backwards.

Extra tip

Social media sites have embedded analytics tools – use them to your advantage! A data-driven strategy can help you work out what works and what doesn’t. It’s then important to be flexible and update your strategy (and how you execute it) based on what the data is telling you.

Top tip #3 – Optimise your profile 

Another crucial element to social media success is optimisation. Consistent branding across your online platforms helps strengthen brand image and works as another avenue to communicate your overall value propositions and market messages. It also helps you to be recognisable to your target audience.

This is a great example from Altera Digital Health UK, using their branding consistently across Twitter and LinkedIn, providing continuity across the company’s owned channels.

Top tip #4 – Use graphics and visuals 

Quality visual content goes a long way on social media. Users are consuming content faster than ever before, that’s why it’s important to catch their attention with interesting and captivating imagery or videos.

Here, Ethical Healthcare Consulting have used photographs to make their content more engaging. It helps to tell more of a narrative, while also providing personality.

Top tip #5 – Keywords and hashtags

Using hashtags containing key words can help your content to be seen by more people from your target audience. As an example, the hashtag #digitalhealth is used up to 50,000 times every week! Conduct key word research to determine which ones you should be using, and aim to use them in all of your posts. There are some great key word search tools out there, like this free one from Wordtracker.

However, don’t be tempted to use too many hashtags per post. Too many can actually drive down engagement, so we would recommend 2-3 per post.

Top tip #6 – Consistency and variation throughout your social media strategy 

As discussed earlier, consistency is key in social media marketing. To get the most out of your strategy, ensure your posts are varied but consistent. Social media is constantly moving so don’t be afraid to recycle content and put fresh spins on it.

That being said, the quality of a post matters, don’t post for the sake of posting.  Even if you have a target of 3 twitter posts per day, we’d always prioritise quality over quantity. Its OK to miss a post target if it means protecting the quality of your content. After all, social media is often the first place many customers will interact with your brand, so it’s important to make it count.

Top tip #7 – Don’t be afraid to show personality 

While it has become an integral part of many companies marketing strategies, social media is also a place that people go in their downtime. It’s important to be mindful of this and adjust your tone accordingly.  Your audience doesn’t necessarily want to see sales posts that are corporate in style. Instead, take advantage of the informality and bring some personality to your accounts.

Here’s an example of how we’ve been using multimedia content to show the people behind our brand!

Top tip #8 – Participate and communicate

Social media platforms – the clue is in the name. Be social! Make sure you are keeping up with the latest trends, news and updates. A great way to do this is by creating Twitter lists – you can track different groups of influencers and identify key industry talking points. Why not give one of ours a follow!

Social is also a great place to engage with your customers. Never before has there been such an easy way to interact with them, so make the most of it!

Top tip #9 – Streamline messaging across multiple platforms 

If you are using multiple platforms, remember that each of them can be used in different ways.

For example, Twitter allows up to 280 characters per post, slightly limiting how much you can say in a single post, but is great for snappy, reactive types of posts. However, LinkedIn allows up to 3,000 characters, allowing you to be more reflective and thoughtful. When it comes to selecting content to share on a given platform, take time to think about where it would work best.

Top tip #10 – Amplify your message 

Use social media as a platform to promote new content such as press releases, company news, blogs, and thought leadership. It’s a great way to amplify your messages you’d like to communicate and to engage with other thought leaders and industry influencers.

Elevate your brand with a solid social media marketing strategy 

Social media marketing doesn’t have to be confusing. A solid strategy that uses these simple tips can ensure you get the most out of it!

That being said, social media is constantly changing, so don’t be so hard on yourself if something doesn’t work. Learn from it and have fun trying something new. These are our key takeaways:

Be personable

Be purpose driven

Be proactive 

We have helped many digital health companies, big and small, plan and execute their social media strategies. They have been able to connect with industry influencers, identify leads and consolidate their brand image as a result. Get in touch with us if you’re ready to ramp up your socials!