Communications Best Practices for Social Media

With more than 4.8 billion social media users globally—nearly 60% of the population—social media has become an important piece of digital marketing strategy. Over 90% of business leaders recognize that social media assists them in building brand loyalty, allows them to better understand their customers, improves public relations.

In this article, we discuss what you should consider when it comes to social media use and communications, including social media strategy, content approach, community management, social listening, analytics, and current and future trends.

Social Media Strategy

Creating a successful social media presence requires a comprehensive strategy that targets the right audience, sets clear goals, and maintains consistency. Set a social media strategy to determine your focus and decide on a way forward on each platform.

Create Audience/Buyer Personas

Buyer personas help social media marketers understand customer voices so that content and messaging can be tailored to meet the specific needs, behaviors, and concerns of a target audience of consumers.

Develop audience or buyer personas to visualize who you would like to reach with your posts. Things to consider for each persona include:

• Occupation
• Interests
• Buying stage
• Needs
• Brand value proposition
• Problems your brand can solve

Once you have these areas mapped out, you can better plan for the types of content to produce, when to post, and what platforms to use.

Set Goals

Determine your purpose and define how you will track performance by establishing clear, attainable goals for what you want to accomplish with your social media presence.
Goals should be SMART:

• Specific
• Measurable
• Attainable
• Relevant
• Time-bound

Your goals should also align with broader business goals. For example, if your business objective is to convert customers into brand champions, your social media goal could be engagement, and the metrics you track could include comments, likes, and mentions.

Times to Post

In general, the best times and days to post on social media for peak engagement are at 8:41 a.m., 3:15 p.m., and 7:00 p.m. on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Recommendations differ by platform and business, so experiment with posting times.

One way to determine the times that have the biggest reach and engagement for your particular audience is by reviewing your analytics.

Be Consistent

It’s imperative to be consistent with the frequency of your social media posts. The expectation for how often to post differs by platform, but the main goal is to keep your posts in users’ feeds so you stay relevant and have a high engagement rate.

In addition to posting on a schedule, staying consistent with your brand’s tone, voice, and style on social media will strengthen brand recognition and trust and help you stand out.

Competitive Analysis

Over 90% of business leaders see the value in using social insights to enhance positioning strategy.

Strategies include analyzing:

• Community management patterns to show you competitor product advantages and disadvantages
• Topics focused on by competitors so you can understand their biggest selling points and determine how to uniquely position your brand
• Share of voice data as a way of measuring market share

Content Approach

Just like every other form of marketing, social media requires detailed planning and forethought to be successful. Detail your methodology before you get started on social media to stay organized and set yourself on the path for success.

Create a Calendar

Developing a social media content calendar allows you to plan ahead for initiatives that you know are coming, whether they are holidays, company events, or marketing campaigns.

Pieces to include on your calendar are:

• The date and time to post
• Creative (copy, images, and links)
• What platform it will be published on

You might decide to color-code different categories of posts as a means of visualizing the variety of your posts. A content calendar gives you insight into what you are promoting heavily, and what may need more of a push. This can be especially helpful for marketers that work with multiple brands to better understand where their resources are being used.

Having a social media calendar prevents having to scramble to come up with last-minute content. The ability to schedule ahead of time also allows you to regularly review your scheduled posts in case anything has changed or needs to be tweaked before it is published.

While some platforms allow you to schedule posts directly on their site, it can be beneficial to use a social media management tool like HootSuite or Sprout Social so you have just one place to keep track of everything.

What to Post

The type of content you post will depend on what resonates with and makes sense for your company. Post ideas include:

By posting a variety of content, you can provide a well-rounded view of your company’s personality so potential customers get to know your brand and you can build credibility.

Creating and Resizing Images

Optimizing your image sizes by platform will guarantee that they are viewable by all users without distortion or unintended cropping. If you aren’t a photo editing expert, we recommend using a free auto-resize tool like Landscape.

Canva is a simple resource for creating your own images. It has templates for each social media platform, ensuring you use the right size. When you create an account, you also get access to their extensive image library.

Cater Your Content by Platform

There are over 100 social media platforms, but that doesn’t mean you should join them all. Among those with the highest monthly average users that you might consider for your business are Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.

Varying your approach by platform allows you to cater to your specific audience on each site. You won’t need to come up with entirely new content for each page; content can be repurposed and presented in the best format for each platform.

Hashtags have been around since 2007, and they are still relevant. They can aid social media users in finding your page, increase engagement, and promote your brand. As a general rule, you should include 1-3 hashtags per post on each platform.

Learning best practices for social media communications can help you gain a comprehensive understanding of how to create an effective presence.

Students in the Social Media and Public Relations concentration of the online Master of Arts in Communications and Digital Media at Pace University study social media strategies and approaches by completing hands-on projects.

Community Management

Social media community management involves interacting with social media users to cultivate brand loyalty and build relationships.

Respond Promptly

Social media users expect a quick response time from brands—16% believe they should get a response within minutes, 23% say within 1-2 hours, and 30% think they should receive a response the same day. Personalized, quick care is of high importance to people on social media, so it pays to prioritize this process.

Be Ready for Criticism

Effective community management involves engaging with all types of feedback. Preparing for tough questions that you might receive from current and potential customers on social media can help you finesse your responses ahead of time and stay calm when you receive a complaint.

Social Listening

Social listening involves keeping track of the conversation around your brand on social media so you can note overall sentiment and join the discussion when it makes sense. It can also be used to monitor what users are saying about your competitors.

Analytics

Regularly reviewing your social media performance is vital to make sure you’re meeting your goals, or it can give you the data needed to empower you to adjust your strategy. Many social media platforms have free tools available to review metrics.

• Facebook offers Meta Business Suite, enabling you to track areas like reach, content interactions, page visits, link clicks, and follower growth.
• Instagram business or creator accounts can view the accounts they’ve reached and those that have interacted with their content, including detailed user information like demographics.
• LinkedIn page analytics consist of followers, visitors, leads, and competitor information.
• X analytics analytics include new followers, impressions, engagements, retweets, and likes.

If budget allows, investing in a social media management tool will allow you to dig deep into cross-platform insights in one place.

Along with organic social media posts, many brands also elect to incorporate paid advertising into their plans. Ways to measure paid social performance include:

Current and Future Trends

Influencers

Brands have found success in partnering with micro-influencers—people with 1,000 to 100,000 social media followers—to advertise their products. Particularly, nearly 58% of brands with ecommerce stores acknowledge influencer marketing as a key aspect of their promotional efforts, and of these, 57% would rather work with micro-influencers than with bigger names.

Not only is collaborating with micro-influencers less costly than partnering with celebrities, it also has a better outcome. Because of the relationships they have with their followers, micro-influencers can have engagement rates up to 60% higher than celebrities.

If your company is interested in partnering with influencers, a good first step is to set goals and determine your target audience before compiling a list of potential creators you’d like to work with. Then, send a personalized direct message (DM) to each influencer. When it comes time to run a campaign, you can expect it to be a joint effort, since the creator will want to stay true to their personal brand and values. Make sure to track results as well so you can determine whether it’s worthwhile to continue the partnership.

Music

Instagram introduced music for Stories in 2018; later that year it became available on Facebook Stories. It has since been rolled out to the feed on both platforms.

Consider using music in your social media posts to:

• Enhance your content: Get your message across better than you could with just an image.
• Increase engagement: Draw users in through a combined auditory and visual experience.
• Establish your brand voice: Select music from a certain genre, era, or of a particular mood to form a clear voice and let your brand personality come through.

What’s to Come

It’s hard to know what the future of ever-evolving social media will bring, but experts have some predictions.

One opinion is that the number of users who scour social media rather than turning to search engines for products, recommendations, and reviews will continue to grow. Even now, nearly 40% of U.S. Google users ages 18 to 24 turn to TikTok or Instagram over Google Maps or Search when looking for somewhere for lunch due to the visual nature of these platforms.

Shopping on social media platforms is another area expected to develop further. 27% of marketers say that selling their products on social media is more valuable than driving traffic to their website. The top way that Gen Z is finding new products is through social media, which will make it even more important in the years to come.

Social media is constantly changing, from interfaces to platforms to available features. It’s essential to stay on top of trends to remain engaged with potential customers and keep up with competitors.

Prepare to Lead in Social Media Marketing with a Communications Master’s

The Pace University online MA in Communications and Digital Media equips you with the skills to become a successful social media marketer. The program features an optional Social Media and Public Relations concentration that provides practical experience in creating digital media content and campaigns and developing media relations plans for real clients. Our courses cover corporate communications, reputation management, and emergent digital media practices, equipping you to excel in today’s environment.

About the Online MA in Communications and Digital Media at Pace University

The Pace University online Master of Arts in Communications and Digital Media prepares professionals for careers in the industry by helping them build excellent communications skills through engaging projects. The program includes coursework in editing, videography, production, public relations, advertising, and media writing. Choose an optional concentration in Digital Filmmaking and Media Production or Social Media and Public Relations, or create your own path by selecting courses from both areas. You’ll also have the choice to complete either an internship or thesis.