But you need to know where to start. And this here’s a great place to start!
In this guide you will find useful articles with actionable tips for every level of social media marketer. From ultimate guides and those aimed at the beginner practitioner, to articles aimed at the frustrated marketer who feels the big social media sites are eating their ad budget with no results, it’s all included.
The first social networking site was released in 1997, over 20 years ago now, and a bit of history and introspection is a worthwhile endeavor for those who care to appreciate the social environment they are now operating in. It’s included here too.
This article does come with a couple of caveats however - for one thing, you will get out of social media only as much as you put in. If you don’t have the time or bandwidth, creative drive or stamina to post good content on a frequent and regular basis, maybe you shouldn’t even start.
Secondly, in this world, we measure results and use that information to improve future performance! Data is only as valuable as you make it. If you sift and filter away the real data to only leave behind numbers you (or your boss, your client, whoever) view as favorable, well you won’t get much value out of your data and you won’t see measurable improvements.
So don’t be afraid of failure, because it’s only failure if you don’t learn anything from the experience.
Twitter marketing resources
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This Ultimate Guide to Twitter marketing from Canva is a great place to start learning about the platform. Don’t forget to size your thumbnails appropriately!
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If you’re up and running on Twitter and have a healthy mix of organic and paid posts doing wonders for you, it’s time to take a look under the hood. Let Talkwalker’s Free Twitter Analytics Tools blog help guide you where to start your analysis.
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This must read from Vulture is an awesome reflection of Brand Twitter History with a look at how things started on the micro-blogging platform, where they stand now, and what we can expect in the future from Brand Twitter.
Instagram marketing resources
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This article from Photoslurp is an essential place to start on Instagram. You need a strategy and you need goals. Let this Strategy Guide by the numbers be the place you start in your Instagram self-assessment.
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Now you know what you’re aiming for on Instagram, let Talkwalker show you how to apply that to specific industries. This Instagram Marketing Strategy from the fashion industry takes the theoretical to the practical.
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Grow grow grow! Instagram hashtags and the strategies included in this guide will help get you there. You need to know the many hows and wheres you can place your hashtags. Don’t waste your time with hashtag comments, make the hashtag count.
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Hubspot has a round-up of the Best Brands on Instagram so you can model yourself after those doing it right. Here at Talkwalker we’re fans of Hubspot’s own Instagram presence, but you’ll find your role models on this list regardless of industry.
Facebook marketing resources
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There’s no bigger social media advertising platform than Facebook. It’s got the people you’re looking to connect with, plain and simple. Use this Ultimate Guide to Marketing for a Facebook page to get up and running with your business Page.
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Databox has excellent tips to reduce your CPM if you’re fed up with the price you pay to connect with the consumers you want.
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What type of post performs best on which platform? Social Insider took an exhaustive look at the types of posts and what they contained that allowed them to outperform other posts. This is a great way to develop a simple checklist before content creation that will ensure high quality posts and results.
Use a social media ✔ to get every post right
Linkedin marketing resources
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LinkedIn has provided their own Marketing Resources page which will help you understand exactly where the platforms strengths lie, and the type of content that does well there. Similar to all other social media platforms, LinkedIn algorithmically loves its own content the most, so post articles and videos that are meant specifically for LinkedIn’s audience.
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Social Media Examiner has a great breakdown of the different Content Strategies for LinkedIn Pages. It’ll walk you through the goals each piece of content can achieve for you. Are you trying to find a job on LinkedIn? It’s a great place to look, but looking is only half the battle, you have to brand yourself too. Using LinkedIn to drive sales? Target the demographic you want to reach with content that’s relevant to them.
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LinkedIn Tips to grow your following to 10k from Tim Queen. Becoming a thought leader in the space is not as hard as it may seem, but dedication and high quality content are musts. It’s not that you need video content daily to grow your following, but you do need content that lives solely on LinkedIn to play into its algorithm.
Reddit marketing resources
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Should you even do Reddit for Marketing? The Content Marketing Institute walks you through all the advantages and potential brand pitfalls of this very unique platform. It can be done, and it can be done well, but it’s a very narrow path the marketer must walk to achieve success on the platform. In a word - you must provide value to the community.
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Buffer has a great read with this article about Reddit Marketing Strategies for Those Who Don’t Have Time for Reddit Marketing. You can use it for trend research, competitive intelligence, or just to find the freshest, spiciest memes for your next campaign.
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Reddit Hates Blatant Marketing. Grow & Convert shows you how to get upvotes which can turn into website visits which can turn into leads, by providing value to Reddit communities.
YouTube marketing resources
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YouTube is technically somewhere between a social media site and search engine. Since it’s both, it means ignoring it is like ignoring search AND social! Completely unacceptable. Here AdEspresso has a YouTube Marketing for Beginners guide that will help you understand the platform's strengths (hint: it’s search and social).
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So you’re up and running, you have content publishing on a regular schedule and you think the videos you’re producing are pretty good. Now what? Time to get people to start viewing and following you. Here’s 15 Tips for Growing Your YouTube Channel from Social Media Examiner.
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Here you have more smart tips to Get More YouTube Subscribers from Shout Me Loud. They range from the common sense like subtitling your videos, to the perhaps less obvious, like using meta tags, and suggestions for how videos should end. It also includes the brutal honest truth about all videos on the internet: once you think they’re perfect, edit and cut them down even further.
Analytics - How, Why, and What to Use:
So now you have a sense of the different strategies you need for each social media platform, tips on how to achieve success there, and maybe your creative juices are now flowing and you have awesome ideas about the sweet sweet content you will produce to help you meet your goals.
That’s great.
But none of it means anything if you don’t go back and analyze your results, and frankly even that’s not enough. You need to do “micro-analyses” too. Find out things like what colors perform best. What day of the week performs best, but also what time of day for each day of the week performs best. These are micro-analyses, and while tedious it’s absolutely necessary. Fortunately we have the tools to help you with this task:
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Free Twitter Analytics Tools will help you make the most of your 280 characters.
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Free Instagram Analytics Tools to identify influencers, and find out what kind of content your audience wants.
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Free Facebook Analytics Tools will help your company’s Page attract more followers. And they can help you identify the types of people who would want to follow your Page, if they knew about it. And the type of content those people want.’
Feel like something’s missing? Give us a shout in the comments about what part of your social content strategy is excluded.
Each channel's different, make sure you consult our ✔
