As of January 2022, there were over 17 social media platforms hosting approximately 4.65 billion users. This has made it necessary for modern companies to have active social media handles. And with such a huge social media population, marketing professionals have been forced to fight for their target audience’s attention. 

But due to the competition for attention, it's no longer enough to create and publish high-quality blog posts and social media posts. Social Media Managers must now promote their posts and use other social media strategies to drive traffic to their company’s social channels and websites.

Perhaps you are also experiencing little engagement on your social media posts. Do your posts fall flat with little to no reaction from your target audience? If so, keep reading for the ultimate guide on how to get your social media posts noticed.

1. Identify Your Target Audience

The number one reason why brands fail to get their social media posts noticed is a lack of understanding of who their target audience is. This is why the first step to creating an effective social media strategy is to conduct market research and identify your target audience.

This is the group of consumers most likely to buy your products or services. How old are they? What is their gender, income, hobbies, and location?

Once you have a deep understanding of your audience you will know what information they are interested in and which social media channels they frequent. This allows you to create and post social media posts that attract engagement, likes, and shares from your consumers.

2. Create and Post Quality Content

Before creating any content for your social media, ask yourself if your target audience will find the information useful, entertaining, or worth sharing. Try to provide unique content that your audience won’t find anywhere else. This will keep them coming back to you for more information.

Avoid focusing solely on promotional content. Put your customer first by providing information that they will find useful. People hate being sold to, and they don’t go to social media to watch adverts. You must find the right balance between informational or entertaining posts and promotional content. This will create trust with your target audience such that they will be more willing to engage with any promotional content you post.

Want to see slate in action?

Fill in the form to watch the 3-min demo video.

Watch the Video

3. Ride the Wave of Trending Content

Another great tip to add to your social media strategy is to take advantage of any trending or viral content. This requires that you and your team stay on top of trending news.

Perhaps a celebrity starts trending worldwide for making a gaffe. Or, imagine a news item goes viral. You can jump on the trend by creating content around it and adding your brand’s core message. Using the same hashtags as the trending content will attract your post to consumers that have never interacted with your brand.

Choose trending content that is relevant to your brand and has just recently gone viral. Also, to do this successfully, don’t try to ‘trend jack’ news items about other people’s sufferings. For instance, some companies have lost their audience’s trust by trying to ride on sad news such as natural disasters, terrorist attacks, or race relations issues.

Your company will also seem out of touch if you try to jump on trending content that has already peaked in popularity. It is important to capitalize on viral news right at the beginning of the wave when it goes viral and before journalists start reporting on it.

4. Learn From Your Competitors

Social media is very public so it's relatively easy to watch and learn from your competitors’ successes and failures. You and your competitors have a similar target audience so what works for them will likely work for you.

Check which of their social media posts trend and which ones flop. What about their viral posts attract and engage consumers? Learning from your competitors will help you improve your social media posts so that they get noticed.

5. Add Quality Visuals and Video to Your Content

LinkedIn found that posts on their platform that contain eye-catching images have a 98% higher comment rate than text-only posts. Most social media platforms are driven by aesthetics. Consumers want to be inspired by lovely images or entertaining video content so give it to them.

Due to a shorter attention span, consumers prefer scanning an infographic or watching a video to reading long paragraphs of text. A word of caution though; ensure that your images or video adhere to the parameters of your social media platforms. Otherwise, you will annoy your consumers with cut images or blank spaces where your photo or video should have been.

6. Choose the Best Times to Post

To get maximum engagement on your social media you should schedule posts to go live when your audience is online and active. But how can you figure out the best times to post? Instead of winging it or using trial and error methods, invest in social media analytics tools.

These will give you accurate data on your content performance depending on parameters such as type of post, time of day, frequency of posts, etc. Use this data to tweak your social media posts and digital marketing strategy for maximum return on investment.

7. Invest In Social Media Ads

In the early days of a social media campaign, it can be very hard to gain organic reach. Unless you get lucky with a viral piece of content, it may take you years to attain the number of followers you desire.

The shortcut to increasing your reach is to promote your social media accounts with targeted advertisements. Properly crafted ads have a fantastic return on investment and can greatly increase your social media reach.

8. Be Consistent

The most popular brands online are very consistent with their social media posts. The best way to stay on top of your audience’s mind is to post frequently and consistently. Stay ahead of the game by building up a bank of content that can be posted throughout the year.

Social media has become saturated with brands competing for your target audience’s attention. If you want to get your social media posts noticed, you must find ways to stand out from the sea of posts from better-established brands.

Learn more about how Slate can help transform your social media content and schedule a demo today.