The short answer: Yes, definitely use hashtags. Hashtags are an essential asset in your digital marketing toolbox.

Hashtags impact the overall performance of social media content. Forward-thinking brands use them with specific goals and intentional strategies in mind—whether they’re making their product go viral or leveraging hashtag analytics.

Unfortunately, the confusion surrounding hashtags prevents some marketers from using them to their full potential. This is further complicated by experts who negate the benefits of hashtags or dismiss them as irrelevant.

In this article, we break down everything you need to know to hashtag with confidence. We explore what hashtags are, how to use them and examples of ways brands are successfully ushering in the new era of hashtags.

• What is a hashtag?
• Why use hashtags
• How to find which hashtags to use
• Tips for using hashtags
• Using hashtags on different social networks
• Hashtag examples to spark your next big idea

What is a hashtag?

Hashtags are words and numbers following the # symbol that categorize and track content on social media. You can add hashtags to social posts, bios and comments on most major platforms, including Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube and Pinterest.

What is the history of the hashtag?

So, where did the hashtag come from? The first hashtag debuted on Twitter in 2007 from a product designer named Chris Messina.

“I designed the hashtag to thwart any one social network from becoming the dominant gatekeeper. Think about it: The hashtag is one of the few superstructures that spans across all social media platforms.

Only hashtags allow similarly-interested folks to find each other—whether they’re on Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, Reddit or elsewhere. It provides a glimpse into what an interoperable, decentralized social web could be like.” — Chris Messina, Inventor of the hashtag

What is the hashtag symbol?

Many social media users and marketers immediately recognize the # symbol as a hashtag, but its official name is an octothorpe. The term was first used in 1971 when telecommunications companies introduced the # symbol to the touch-tone dialing keypad.

However, depending on how you use it, the symbol is called many different names. Before its use on social media, it was most widely known as a pound or number sign (example: #2 pencil). Musicians also use the symbol to distinguish a sharp note (example: F#), while copy editors use it to denote adding a space.

In the early days of the internet, chatroom users referred to the symbol as a “hash,” a word borrowed from programmer culture. That’s where Messina was inspired to repurpose it on Twitter. Since then, the term hashtag has dominated modern popular lexicon.

What is the purpose of a hashtag?

Given the sophistication of today’s social media algorithms, it might be difficult to remember the chaotic social feeds of the early 2000s. Users had limited control over what content they saw and were frustrated by too many uninteresting or irrelevant posts.

Hashtags were invented to help bring order to the social media user experience. Hashtags group together similar conversations to help people find content that matters to them. Once a hashtag is published, it becomes a clickable, searchable link.

For example, when you click on #SummerVibes on TikTok, you can see all videos published on the platform using that hashtag. You can also see the top videos and overall popularity of the hashtag.

What is a hashtag used for?

While organizing feeds was the original purpose of hashtags, their use case has evolved. Now, they empower users to amplify their message. Hashtags have become so powerful they can be the spark that ignites social movements (example: #MeToo, #BlackLivesMatter).

Hashtags aren’t always a force of social change—some viral hashtags are just plain fun. Like #Gentleminions, a TikTok challenge turned cultural phenomenon that led to record-breaking box office numbers for the Minions franchise.

For brands, hashtags can help social marketers reach niche audiences and build community.

According to Messina, “Many more people are interested in finding their community—or growing the one they already run. Hashtags provide a tried and true method across nearly every social media platform.”

Hashtags also help social marketers create viral campaigns, increase brand awareness and reach their business goals.

Why you should use hashtags

Hashtags are powerful tools for growing your online presence. Regardless of which social platform you use them on, here are three ways hashtags can benefit your business:

Increases engagement

You can use hashtags to participate in larger conversations or trending topics, which can increase the reach of your posts, spark conversations and attract even more attention.

For instance, let’s say you’re a sports brand that wants to join in on the conversation around the FIFA World Cup. You can use relevant hashtags such as #WorldCup and #FIFAWorldCup to participate in the larger conversation around the event.

This will help your posts appear in searches and feeds related to the World Cup, increasing your visibility and potential for engagement.

You can also monitor these hashtags and engage with users who are using them. Like and comment on relevant posts, share user-generated content or even run a contest or giveaway using the hashtags to encourage engagement.

But be careful — including spammy, irrelevant, generic and too many hashtags can do more harm than good. Choose your hashtags wisely to reach like-minded audiences, and make sure your content is worth engaging with.

Makes your brand easier to find

Hashtags are a great way to increase brand awareness. They let you categorize your content so anyone interested in that particular topic can easily find it.

For example, let’s say you run a skincare brand and you create a post about your new moisturizer product. By including relevant hashtags such as #skincare, #beauty and #moisturizer in your post, you’re essentially tagging your content with those keywords.

Users who are interested in skincare products or searching for those keywords can find your post (and brand) by searching for those hashtags.

You can also include branded hashtags to help people who are already aware of your brand to easily find specific posts and pages.

Adds additional context to your posts

Hashtags connect your posts to specific topics or themes, making it easier for your audience to find, understand, relate to and engage with your content.

For example, if you’re sharing a new recipe you’ve tried, including hashtags like #recipe can help make your post searchable and differentiate it from other non-recipe food posts.

Similarly, if you’re attending a conference or event, using the event’s official hashtag can help your post get seen by other attendees and people following the event online.

Hashtags are also useful if you’re sharing creative visual content, and want to add the right context without writing long paragraphs of text.

How to find which hashtags to use

Just because a hashtag is popular doesn’t mean it’s the right fit for your brand. Before using a new hashtag, determine your goal (example: increased engagement).

After you have an endgame in mind, start digging into hashtag research. Here are a few ways to find the right hashtags for your brand.

Use a social media listening tool

Tools like RiteTag and Sprout Social’s Listening can help you identify relevant conversations by tracking keywords associated with your brand.

By monitoring these conversations, you can find out what hashtags are being used by your target audience and what topics they’re interested in.

Sprout also lets you track the performance of the hashtags you’re already using by analyzing the number of mentions, engagement and audience sentiment. This is helpful for knowing whether you’re using the right hashtags or need a change of strategy.

Research trending hashtags

Take advantage of trending hashtags to attract more attention to your posts.

Using popular hashtags is also a great way to come up with creative ideas for new content. Plus, it helps your brand become part of a larger community and join the conversation.

So, how do you find trending hashtags in your niche?

Begin by natively researching existing popular and relevant hashtags across apps. Use these hashtag types for inspiration:

• Product or service (example: #Pretzels)
• Industry or community-specific (example: #BookTok)
• Timely or seasonal (example: #NYE)
• Location (example: #Dublin)
• Acronyms (example: #SMMs)

Turn to your social media platform’s trend-specific page to find these.

On Instagram, for example, you can browse the Explore page to see which posts are rising in popularity. Take note of the hashtags they’re using and consider hopping on the bandwagon if they align with your brand.

Other ways to find trending hashtags include using hashtag research tools and keeping track of events, holidays and special occasions.

Review your competition

Studying your competitors’ online strategy is a clever way to find relevant and effective hashtags for your brand.

Start by identifying brands that are similar to yours in terms of offerings, target audience and overall brand image. Then, analyze the hashtags they’re using in their posts, as well as the ones in their bio or profile description.

Look for common themes or topics that are relevant to your brand. Evaluate the engagement level on their posts and shortlist hashtags you might want to “share the space” with.

Don’t forget to track the performance of any competitor hashtags you use in your own posts. Hashtags working for your competition may not work for your brand.

In that case, it’s best to understand your own brand voice, audience and niche, and use more targeted hashtags that resonate with your customers.

Tips for using hashtags

Despite the benefits of hashtags, some marketers are unsure how to use them strategically.

For example, if your goal is to reach a specific audience, adding popular hashtags (example: #ForYouPage) to your posts might cast too wide of a net and fail to connect you with the right people.

To perfect the art of hashtagging, you should conduct research, use hashtags thoughtfully and analyze your results.

Here are some tips for using hashtags to their max potential.

1. Create branded hashtags

You might find creating your own branded hashtag is the best way to reach your goals. Branded hashtags increase visibility, clicks, mentions and overall reach.

Make sure to use your branded hashtag consistently across all of your social media channels. And encourage your followers to use it when they share content related to your brand.

For example, Rare Beauty — Selena Gomez’s makeup brand — started the hashtag #rareroutine to encourage customers to share their beauty routines using Rare Beauty products.

You can also consider running a social media campaign or contest using the hashtag to further promote your brand.

For most brands, using the right mix of popular, niche and brand-specific hashtags is the sweet spot for exposure and engagement.

Above all, it’s most important to identify hashtags that will help your brand stand out from your competitors and contribute toward your unique goals.

2. Use relevant hashtags in your social content

Once you identify which hashtags you’re going to use, it’s time to start adding them to your content. With hashtags, the general rule of thumb is less is more. Avoid stuffing your posts full of hashtags. Not only could this deter people from reading your message, it could also lead the social platform to categorize your posts as spam.

In general, stick to a few hashtags that are relevant to or describe your post. To determine exactly how many hashtags you should use, follow the best practices of each social platform. Keep reading to learn more about platform-specific best practices in the next section of this article.

When you write your copy, customize your hashtag placement according to each platform’s guidelines. Keep in mind that hashtags are hyperlinks. Adding them to the bottom of your captions, descriptions or posts works best to prevent people from clicking away.

3. Analyze and report on your hashtags’ progress

Tracking your hashtags is the most critical thing you can do to make sure they’re impacting your social performance. Monitor key metrics on a regular basis, including:

• Popularity: How many people are using the hashtag?
• Reach: How many people see the hashtag you’re using?
• Interactions: How many people engage (like, share or comment) with posts that include the hashtag?
• Users: Who is seeing the hashtag?

You can find some of this data in the native apps. If you want to automatically generate and visualize it in one place, use a tool like Sprout Social.

In Sprout, there are multiple ways to track the performance of your hashtags. For example, you can use social listening to find out how frequently people are talking about your topic, what related terms they’re using and the sentiment around the topic.

Use data to determine which hashtags work well and which ones don’t. Continue to experiment and test new tags to avoid using the same hashtags on every post—this could register as spam. Instead, keep your best performing hashtags on rotation and try out new ones often.

Using hashtags on different social networks

When using hashtags across your social presence, don’t take a one-size-fits-all approach. Tailor hashtags to suit each platform. Here are up-to-date hashtag best practices you can follow to supercharge your content and grow your reach.

How to use hashtags on Instagram

There are a number of benefits to using hashtags on Instagram. According to Instagram’s Creator Community, IG users should “think of hashtags as a tool that provides context about your post and supports delivering content to people who are interested in a particular topic.”

The Creator Community also lays out these guidelines:

• Only use 3-5 hashtags at a time
• Use hashtags in your posts, comments and Stories
• Only use hashtags relevant to your community and brand

 

View this post on Instagram

 

A post shared by Sprout Social (@sproutsocial)

How to use hashtags on Facebook

Facebook has steered away from giving explicit best practice advice since introducing hashtags in 2016. This has led some brands to shy away from using them, while others include them in every post.

Based on our research, follow these steps to make hashtags on Facebook work for your brand:

• Only use 1-2 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your posts, comments and Stories
• Use timely hashtags since many users turn to Facebook for news and events

How to use hashtags on TikTok

Some cite TikTok as the ultimate hashtag success story. And there’s no denying the impact hashtags have on growing your reach in the app.

To help your TikTok grow to its fullest potential, use these hashtag best practices:

• Only use 3-5 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your videos and Stories
• Stay on top of emerging, trending hashtags and use them thoughtfully
• Avoid using #ForYou, #FYP and #ForYouPage. If you do use them, proceed with caution.

How to use hashtags on Twitter

Hashtags are baked into Twitter’s DNA. Twitter users turn to the platform to catch up on what’s happening and hashtags make finding the latest content easy. Twitter makes it even easier by displaying trending hashtags and keywords on the homepage.

Use these hashtags tips to help your content perform well on Twitter:

• Only use 1-2 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your Tweets, Retweets and Replies
• Use community-focused hashtags (example: events, conferences, holidays)
• Join current conversations by using popular hashtags and jumping on trends (if it’s a good fit for your brand)

How to use hashtags on LinkedIn

LinkedIn users follow and interact with hashtags that are relevant to their job or industry. Tap into your audience’s go-to hashtags when creating your social content.

LinkedIn is also a great place to roll out your branded hashtags, and encourage your team members to use them too.

When using hashtags on LinkedIn, consider these best practices:

• Only use 2-3 hashtags
• Use hashtags in your posts and on your company page. Note: Hashtags in comments or articles don’t show up in people’s feed.
• Mix well-known and niche, branded hashtags

How to use hashtags on YouTube

Use hashtags on YouTube to help people find your videos. Hashtags boost your searchability and organize your channel, which encourages viewers to stick around.

To encourage more video views, optimize your hashtag usage with these guidelines:

• Only use 3-5 hashtags per video
• Use 1-2 hashtags in your title and the rest in your description

How to use hashtags on Pinterest

Pinterest helps create a personalized experience by sorting all Pins into categories. People look for “pin-spiration” for everything from holiday decor to muscle cars, so adding niche hashtags to your posts make it easier to reach the right audience.

Use these hashtag tips to help your Pins be seen by your intended audience:

• There isn’t official Pinterest data to support the number of hashtags you should use. Use your own discretion and, remember, less is more.
• Use timely hashtags since users are often on Pinterest to gain seasonal ideas
• Make sure your hashtags are relevant to your Pin

Hashtag examples to spark your next big idea

Now that you know how to use hashtags across platforms, here’s our round up of the best ways brands and creators use them.

1. Reference an internet trend

When Casper heard about #GoblinMode—the latest internet trend that celebrates lazing around—they quickly got in on the fun. As a brand known for selling state of the art mattresses, rest and relaxation is part of their ethos.

If you see a new trend that aligns with your brand, use it to inspire your next Tweet. Don’t forget to use the trending hashtag.

2. Use a hashtag for your Q&A

Orgain hosted a live Q&A event and posted their responses to Twitter using #OrganicSummer. The hashtag made it easier for their audience to follow along and engage with their content. It was general enough that it reached a lot of people, but specific enough to attract the right audience.

Are you hosting or participating in an event soon? Be sure to use that event’s hashtag in your promotional content. If there isn’t a hashtag yet, create one.

3. Combine branded and general hashtags

Jenna Kutcher, host of the Goal Digger podcast, is known for her online marketing savvy. In her LinkedIn posts, she uses hashtags that are specific to her brand (example: #GoalDiggerPodcast) and general hashtags her audience might use (example: #Entrepreneurship).

If you’re looking for inspiration for your branded hashtag, consider using the name of an existing campaign, tagline or content series your brand currently uses. The keywords are already associated with your brand, so they’ll be a natural fit.

4. Tag your location

Myles Apparel knows their customers are just as nature-obsessed as they are. Which is why tagging their Instagram images with #Donner makes sense. Donner Summit, California, is a highly-Instagrammable location made for outdoor enthusiasts.

If you’re at a location that’s significant to your audience, add it to your post or Story as a hashtag.

Start using hashtags in your content strategy

The hashtag isn’t dead. In fact, it’s more vital to the success of your content’s performance than ever. By delivering content with the right hashtags, you can forge relationships with your community, build brand awareness and reach your goals on social—and beyond.

Need help determining which hashtags are right for your brand? Use our worksheet to uncover the hashtags that have the greatest impact on your content.

The post Hashtags: What they are and how to use them effectively appeared first on Sprout Social.

Why “now,” though?

For starters, YouTube is the second most-visited site on the web, and when we’re spending up to six hours per day consuming video, the writing is on the wall. If you want to stand out on YouTube, you need to take advantage of as many promotional tactics as possible.

We’ll go into detail on each of these tactics for how to grow your YouTube channel and maximize your viewership. Whether you’re just getting started or want to see your numbers tick further upward, these tips are all fair game.

• What counts as a view on YouTube?
• Why are views important on YouTube?
• How to get more views on YouTube: 17 tips and tricks
• 4 resources for growing your YouTube channel
• How do you promote your YouTube channel?

What counts as a view on YouTube?

Views refer to the total number of times your video or channel has been watched. Each time a viewer plays a video and watches it for at least 30 seconds, YouTube counts it as a view. If someone watches your video several times, each time is counted as a new view. This applies across all devices whether a person watches via smartphone or desktop. This also applies to embeds and videos shared on social media like Facebook.

When someone visits your channel page, you receive a view. If you use YouTube Analytics, you can go to the Overview tab to see how many views your YouTube channel received over the last 28 days.

Why are views important on YouTube?

Views are important because they influence the YouTube algorithm. If you get more views, the algorithm will push your video out to more people. Views are also part of how you can make money on YouTube, which we all want to see a return on investment and increased revenue.

Views are also vital on YouTube because it’s a way to boost awareness and build brand affinity. It may take some time to achieve your target viewership, but you’ll need to connect with top-of-funnel prospects to help reach your goals in the long run.

How to get more views on YouTube: 17 tips and tricks

1. Write engaging, must-see titles

YouTube marketing is all about presentation.

Titles are make-or-break when it comes to your video’s performance. Ask yourself: are you presenting your content as “must-see” or “meh?”

The key to crafting killer titles is grabbing your audience’s attention without resorting to clickbait headlines. People crave content that’s entertaining, and they likewise want to know what your video is about from the word “go.”

For example, you can take a page out of the playbooks of YouTube giants like BuzzFeed and WhatCulture. Such videos often rely on listicles, question-based titles or hyperbole (“insane,” “…of all time”) to rack up the views.

Athlean X’s fitness-based videos are another good example. The channel’s content manages to sneak in relevant keywords in its titles while also coming across as conversational.

“Best-of” lists and “how-to” titles are always a safe bet, too. Food channel Tasty uses click-worthy titles like this:

The takeaway here is that you should definitely spend time mulling over engaging titles rather than sticking with the first idea that pops into your head.

In terms of specifics, many have observed that the optimal YouTube video title length should be around 70 characters. Meanwhile, tools such as CoSchedule’s headline analyzer recommends 55 characters for an engaging headline. CoSchedule’s tool isn’t specifically meant for video titles but is awesome for brainstorming YouTube-friendly titles to help promote your YouTube channel.

Publish on YouTube with Sprout Social

The opportunities are virtually endless on YouTube, and you can now publish to YouTube directly from Sprout.

Host long-form video on your channel, extend reach through YouTube’s extensive search capabilities, and track how your performance stacks up to other social networks.

Start a free trial to give our YouTube publishing features a try.

2. Optimize your videos for visibility

Here’s some food for thought: YouTube videos show up in 70% of the top 100 Google search results.

Heck, see for yourself. Any given product or “how-to” query on Google will return something from YouTube.

In fact, YouTube results sometimes even pop up before traditional blog posts or websites. Listen: YouTube is the second-largest search engine in the world in and of itself. Just like people search for products and need problems solved via Google, the same rings true on YouTube.

Think of your YouTube videos like any other piece of content that needs to be optimized in terms of keywords, tags and so on.

In order to increase your chances of showing up, you’ll want to follow some of the best practices for YouTube SEO:

• Titles and description: Include target keywords in your titles and descriptions. You can use a tool like Keywordtool.io to help you find keyword ideas.
• Mention keywords in your video: According to Brian Dean of Backlinko, saying your target keywords in your video can help YouTube better understand what your video is about.
• Engagement: YouTube uses engagement (likes, comments, views) to help determine where videos rank in its search results.
• Categories: Use categories to help YouTube get a better understanding of who to show your videos to.
• Tags: In addition to categories, you can also add tags to your videos to give YouTube more context about your content. You can use quite a few tags, so add as many as you can think of.

Just like with SEO for your website, don’t keyword stuff. Use keywords when it makes sense, not just for the sake of having them.

3. Figure out what your audience wants

With any type of content you produce, you want to make sure it’s aligned with what your audience wants. Whether you’re writing a blog post or creating a video, start by getting to know your audience and what type of content they want to see from you.

If you’re just starting to promote your YouTube channel, take a look at your competitors or other video creators in your industry. Look at which of their videos get the most views and engagement. This will give you an idea of what topics your audience wants to learn about and what style of videos they prefer.

Another solution is to look at your YouTube Analytics if you’ve already uploaded videos. YouTube gives you detailed information on audience demographics, location, engagement and other helpful stats. You can also take your strategy a step further with YouTube reporting in Sprout Social and see how your content stacks up to other social videos you’ve produced.

Want to better understand your YouTube metrics? Download our video metrics cheat sheet to learn the most important metrics to track and get ideas for video content tailored to your marketing goals.

4. Engage with the YouTube community

Although you might not think of YouTube as a social network per se, the platform does represent a thriving community where users are engaging via content, profiles, “likes” and comments.

Sounds pretty “social” if you ask us.

As noted earlier, any sort of interaction with your viewers is seen as a positive signal to YouTube. If nothing else, engaging with your subscribers can help you foster a stronger connection with your audience. “Liking” comments only takes a few seconds, as does pinning a top comment as a sort of personal note to your subscribers.

For example, music channel Artists Of Morality regularly likes and responds to comments on its recent uploads. The channel’s creator regularly engages with subscribers to show appreciation and answer questions, too. She even posts a call to action or challenges in her pinned comments like in the one below:

Just as you’d respond to comments and engage with your followers on any other social network, YouTube is no different.

5. Customize your thumbnails

One of the simplest yet effective tactics to promote your YouTube channel is creating custom thumbnails. Think of your title and thumbnail as a sort of one-two punch to grab a viewer’s attention.

By default, YouTube snags a screenshot from any given video and uses it for the thumbnail. Unfortunately, sometimes the image it grabs will be a blurry shot of you adjusting the camera or a transition.

Not a good look, right?

Creating thumbnails yourself not only makes your videos look more appealing at a glance but also signals a certain sense of professionalism.

Thumbnails don’t have to be rocket science, either. You can even create a template with a particular font and style to make it more consistent and on-brand. This is made especially easy with the help of image creation tools such as Canva. Here’s a good example from Binging with Babish:

If you’re looking for simple social media templates to get started with Creator Studio, check out our free YouTube banners that you can download today!

6. Cross-promote your own videos on YouTube

Chances are you’re covering similar topics on YouTube that overlap with each other. To squeeze more out of your older content, make a point to cross-promote your videos when it makes sense.

For example, you can drop links in the description of a video and encourage viewers to check them out as a sort of call-to-action. Although some might be disappointed by the removal of YouTube’s annotation system, linking in your description encourages viewers to watch your videos all the way through without clicking away.

7. Target Google search results

As noted, YouTube is totally killing it when it comes to SEO.

And while you shouldn’t totally create content for search engines versus people, you should promote your YouTube channel with SEO in mind.

Specifically, product reviews, how-to’s and long-form (10+ minutes) videos covering keyword-specific topics tend to rank well in search engine results pages (SERPs). If you’re strapped for content ideas or want to capitalize on a trending buzzword in your industry, consider how you can do so through your YouTube channel marketing.

8. Run a contest or giveaway

If there’s one thing YouTube users love, it’s a giveaway. Host a YouTube contest or giveaway to encourage people to subscribe to your channel and engage.

To keep your contests simple, have people like your video, leave a comment and subscribe to your channel to enter.

Follow some of our best practices for running any social media contest:

• Make sure you’re following YouTube’s policies.
• Give away a gift that’s related to your brand: you want to attract more than just freebie-seekers.
• Get creative by incorporating user-generated content and other non-traditional entry requirements.

Be careful with hosting frequent YouTube contests, though. You want to make sure you’re getting results from your efforts: otherwise, you’ll end up wasting time, money and resources. After doing one contest, wait a while and look at your subscriber drop-off rate and engagement numbers. If you aren’t bringing in engaged subscribers, you could just be attracting people who want free prizes.

9. Encourage viewers to follow your series

A smart way to promote your YouTube channel is by creating a specific video series that covers a recurring theme or topic. For example, Sprout Social’s YouTube channel has a variety of different series that make up our YouTube presence, like our “Always On” videos.

Series are a win-win for creators and viewers alike. For creators, you hold yourself accountable for creating fresh YouTube content and don’t have to rack your brain for ideas. For your audience, they have something to look forward to and likewise a reason to keep returning to your channel.

10. Embed your YouTube videos

Some of the best places to promote your YouTube channel are beyond YouTube itself.

Case in point, video content is proven to improve conversion rates and lower bounce rate on-site. If you want visitors to stick around a product page or blog post longer, embed a video (like we did below).

Remember: any opportunity you have to funnel your on site (or social!) traffic to YouTube is a plus.

11. Create playlists to organize your YouTube content

The more videos you create, the more difficult it becomes for people to navigate through your channel.

That’s why playlists are so important. Not only do playlists allow you to group your videos into categories to organize your channel, but also appeal to your viewers’ desire to binge.

For example, Beardbrand’s grooming channel has amassed hundreds of videos covering tons of topics. The channel’s various playlists help guide subscribers to relevant content without having to dig for it.

12. Increase engagement with calls to action

Sometimes simply asking for engagement is the best way to get your videos noticed, especially when you consider the immediacy and connection that video content can create.

Not everyone who enjoys one of your videos is going to remember to drop a like or become your subscriber, so it’s common to put these reminders in the description or in the video itself.

Especially if you’re an up-and-coming channel, there’s no shame in asking for some love directly. In fact, asking visitors a question to answer in the comments suggestion or to check out another video are perfect ways to keep the engagement rolling. You can likewise link to other videos or drop an external link to your site to serve as a sort of CTA.

13. Give live streaming a try

Live video is one of the biggest social media trends and it isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With apps like Facebook, Periscope and Instagram making it easier than ever to stream live video, more and more brands are getting on board.

YouTube has been offering live videos for years but has only recently started picking up steam. You can take a look at some popular YouTube Live videos to get a sense of how other brands are using the platform.

Some examples of how you can use YouTube Live are:

• Webinars
• Live tutorials
• Q&A sessions
• Product demonstrations

Don’t worry if your streams don’t go as smoothly as you’d like. Part of the fun (and risk) of live video is you never know what’s going to happen. The unpolished, organic nature of live video is exactly what makes it compelling. For more tips on how to get started with YouTube Live, check out Google’s introduction to live streaming.

14. Collaborate with other creators and brands

A tactic some of the biggest YouTube stars used to grow their following is collaborating with other users. Each collaboration gives you exposure to a new audience. And the best part is those new viewers are more likely to subscribe to your channel since you’re working with a content creator they already know, like and trust.

The key to a successful YouTube collaboration is finding the right partner. You want to collaborate with content creators that share similar passions with your brand so your video comes off as authentic. This now-classic collaboration between BuzzFeed and Purina is a prime example of a thoughtful collaboration that doesn’t feel overly promotional.

15. Run a paid YouTube ad campaign

With marketing in general becoming more pay-to-play, you always have the option to get more visibility through paid YouTube ads. YouTube offers a variety of ad formats to choose from:

• Display ads: These ads show up on the right-hand sidebar of videos, and are only available on desktop.
• Overlay ads: These are semi-transparent ads that are displayed on the bottom part of a video. They’re only available on desktop.
• Skippable and non-skippable video ads: These ads show up before, during or after a video. Skippable ads can be skipped after five seconds, but non-skippable ads have to be watched all the way through before the viewer can watch their video.
• Bumper ads: These are non-skippable ads that have to be watched before the viewer can watch their video. They can be a maximum of six seconds.
• Sponsored cards: These are cards that get displayed within relevant videos. You can use them to promote your products or other content.

For your ad creatives, you can either use an existing video or create something new for a specific campaign. The advantage of using an existing video is you can choose a clip you know has been effective in the past. If a video has already gotten a lot of views and engagement organically, running paid ads can amplify your results.

On the flip side, creating a new video for your ads will allow you to create a more targeted piece of content that you have more control over. For instance, you can create an ad with a specific call-to-action at the end to direct viewers to a landing page or another video. You can learn more about YouTube’s video ad formats here.

16. Regularly publish your YouTube content to social media

It’s no secret that video content crushes it on social media in terms of engagement and performance.

As a result, you should regularly promote your YouTube channel to your social followers to encourage them to become subscribers. As soon as a video goes live, make a point to let your followers on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn know about it. You can likewise create snippets or previews for each social platform that also link to your latest production.

With the help of Sprout Social, you can schedule your content and cross-promote it without having to jump from platform to platform. Features such as ViralPost® can also help ensure that your content goes live based on when your social audiences are engaged.

17. Incorporate pre-production best practices

Put your producer hat on and incorporate some pre-production best practices. There’s a lot that goes into creating video before the camera records, but using these methods will streamline your content production.

• Create a contingency plan. What will you do if there’s an issue with your shooting location? What if your talent becomes sick? Proactively plan so you’ll be prepared for the worst.
• Plan the video concept from start to finish. Use a storyboard to outline each part of the video. Use this outline to mark visual jokes, animations, call to actions, etc.
• Create a shot list. A shot list will help you consider important details like lighting, location and camera angles. Once your script and storyboard is complete, make a list of every scene and note the action and dialogue required for each. Mark the type of setup you want (e.g. wide angle vs. a close up).

Streamlining your content production means you’ll likely be able to produce more video because your process is a well-oiled machine versus one that is always in need of repair. Having a set process will also help ensure each video is striking the right cord because you’ve taken the time to think through important visual details and logistics that will add value to viewers. Since you’ll be able to create more relevant videos, you’ll get more views over time.

4 resources for growing your YouTube channel

In addition to the 17 tips above, make sure you’re up on all things YouTube. Maximize your efforts with these guides:

• How to create a YouTube channel for business – Simplify setting up and perfecting your business channel.
• 11 Tips for writing YouTube descriptions – Differentiate your videos and ensure they’re super findable with optimized descriptions.
• YouTube SEO: How to boost your videos’ rankings – YouTube has become one of the world’s biggest search engines. Follow these tips to make sure you’re meeting audience needs.
• YouTube hashtags: How to use hashtags to increase video views – Demystify how hashtags work on YouTube and get more eyes on your videos.

And with that, we wrap up our guide to how to get more views on YouTube!

How do you promote your YouTube channel?

Growing a YouTube audience doesn’t happen by accident. And yes, it can certainly feel like a grind if your space is crowded with competition.

That’s exactly why it pays to have a variety of promotional tactics in your back pocket. Although some of the tips above require more effort than others, each one can help you get more eyes on your channel and more subscribers as a result.

If you’re ready to ramp up your YouTube presence and start seeing real business results, Sprout Social’s YouTube integration has features to help you seamlessly schedule and publish content. Plus, with our integration, you can dive even deeper into analytics to improve your video strategy.

The post How to get more views on YouTube: 17 ways to promote your channel appeared first on Sprout Social.

Brands that are truly “killing it” on TikTok are creating content that’s as entertaining as it is authentic–making the audience feel closer to the brand. This trends away from the often polished and perfect posts we’re used to seeing from businesses on other social media platforms.

This 45-minute discussion will cover: 

• How your business can gain value from TikTok 
• TikTok audience insights and its potential for your business
• Impactful TikTok marketing tips you can begin implementing now

Featuring speakers from Sprout Social:

The post How to Unlock the Power of TikTok for Your Business appeared first on Sprout Social.

When creating your TikTok marketing strategy, it’s a good idea to use a mixture of popular TikTok trends as well as some staples that can count as evergreen content. This will help your channel stay relevant and timely.

But in order to keep up with the latest trends, you need to know what they are.

We’ve compiled a list of the top eight TikTok trends we expect to see this year (and beyond). With each example, we dive in and share how you can use these trends in your own TikTok strategy.

Top TikTok trends to influence your 2023 TikTok strategy

1. Dance challenges

Dance challenges remain a popular trend on TikTok—the only thing that’s changed is the song and the dance. However, given that TikTok morphed from the lip sync app Musical.ly, it’s no surprise that it still hangs onto its roots. Plus, some of the most famous TikTokers grew their following by creating and performing dance challenges.

Brands that have mascots get a bit of an advantage when it comes to this. While organizations can always have their team members join in on a dance challenge, there’s something about a company mascot dancing along that just stands out.

Mascots can either join in on an existing dance challenge or consider creating their own, like Charmin and their new “Charmin Slide” remix.

The brand even got some famous TikTokers to publish their own rendition of the “Charmin Slide” as a fun promotional technique.

Think of ways that your brand can also jump on various dance challenges. If you scroll through TikTok videos for a bit each week, you should be able to compile a consistent list of dances for your brand mascot to join in on.

2. Pack an order with me

Many small businesses have taken to TikTok to build a community, and one great way to do that is by packing orders on camera. This has become so popular for certain businesses that they will receive comments from customers requesting that their order is packaged on camera.

These videos often tend to take on an ASMR-vibe (more on that in the next trend), making them a double whammy. By making your stockpile visually appealing, you can create an engaging video that showcases how you package orders and builds trust by proving to customers that the products they’re buying are kept safe and sound.

Here’s an example of what this type of video might look like from a small jewelry business.

If you want to start creating your own “Pack an order with me” videos, you’ll want to first focus on your order packaging setup. Create a space where all of your merchandise is housed so that you can easily grab each item for the order and put it together with the shipping materials.

3. ASMR/Satisfying videos

We mentioned ASMR videos briefly in the last point, but we’re going to touch on these a bit more. ASMR stands for autonomous sensory meridian response and it refers to the tingling sensation one might feel down their back sometimes triggered by hearing a certain type of sound.

These ASMR videos focus exclusively on sound, like grabbing items to put into an order, restocking items (another popular video type on TikTok) or filling jars with your product. like we have in this example from DTE Beauty.

ASMR is deemed a type of satisfying video, but there are a number of types of “oddly satisfying” videos that relate more to the visual satisfaction the viewer gets, like this professional baker decorate cookies.

How can you make your product or service visually or auditorily satisfying? Brainstorm some ideas then start filming.

4. Green screen

You’ve heard of a green screen in filming before—it’s used in TV and film to help add digital effects seamlessly. Essentially, it’s a green backdrop that makes it easy for editors to superimpose other images behind the actors. It’s also what is used by meteorologists when sharing maps of the weather.

TikTok also has its own version of a green screen that creators can use in their videos. There are a few different ways you can have your video record overtop the background (the green screen, if you will), each of which can be accessed in the “Effects” tab when recording your video.

Here’s an example of a standard green screen where Chipotle has recorded someone talking over an image of the menu, sharing information about some of their new offerings.

There are so many different ways you can take advantage of the green screen in your own content, so start brainstorming and recording your own videos.

5. Skits

A skit is a type of short video used to entertain or inform your audience via a sort of play or performance. These are extremely popular on TikTok, especially in “Karen” skits and stories about customer service. However, these can be useful for different types of businesses.

Here’s an example of The Washington Post using a skit to explain a news topic in an easy-to-understand format.

If you have a complex topic to explain, consider writing a skit to convey the information. This can also be a fun way to share customer interactions, talk about new products or services and more.

6. Day in the life

Another trending TikTok video type is the “day in the life” video. These follow someone (either someone on your team or the business owner for a small business) throughout their day-to-day tasks and activities, especially how it relates back to their business.

Here’s an example of a bakery owner sharing what a day in her life looks like. She creates these videos multiple times a week and her followers enjoy being able to watch as she grows her business.

This trend can be emulated in a number of different ways. Consider having one team member take over your TikTok account each week and walk followers through what their day-to-day job and work load looks like. Or, if you run a small business, consider regularly sharing what you do throughout the day. Transparency like that is not only interesting to an audience but can also encourage others to follow in your footsteps.

7. Creators take the wheel

Trend-setting TikTok creators are fueling the rise of the creator economy. TikTok is a creator and influencer culture incubator. It enables popular TikTokers to reach and engage millions of users on the app in minutes. And they do this without tons of studio equipment or highly-produced content. Actually, users favor content that feels genuine and realistic rather than perfect. In the world of TikTok, anyone can be a creator.

Creators play a key role in connecting people to brands and products. Entertaining videos featuring real product reviews continue to grow in popularity. Hashtags like #TikTokMadeMeBuyIt led to many products reaching record sales and completely selling out in 2021. Creator product reviews work because people trust TikTok creators to be genuine and share honest feedback about a product.

One of the most popular food critics on the platform right now is Keith Lee, based in Las Vegas. He’s been reviewing small businesses all over the area, causing their restaurants and food trucks to explode with new business. With that in mind, luxury cookie company Last Crumb sent him a box of their cookies for him to review and share his honest opinion.

Tap into creators to help co-create your brand’s identity on TikTok. Remember that come-as-you-are content makes people feel like they can trust you, the creators you partner with and your products.

8. [Insert subculture here] Tok

The TikTok community has something for everyone. That’s why people worldwide are bonding over niche interests and creating their own subcultures. Even though subcultures have existed since the dawn of the internet, TikTok has made them more accessible.

Whether you’re interested in #BookTok #FoodTok, #CleanTok or #MoneyTok, it’s easy to connect with like-minded people who share your passions. Subcultures lead to creative and entertaining videos, but they’re also a essential places for self-expression.

To connect with a subculture community, it is important to create content that feels trustworthy and authentic to your brand. Immerse yourself in the subculture and stay up to date on current music, jokes, edits and memes.

For a bookstore like Barnes and Noble, it’s easy to assimilate into #BookTok. Various B&N locations have their own TikTok accounts and create content about the bookkeepers’ favorite books, store layouts or utilize fun and relevant filters, like in this example below.

Use these TikTok trends in your marketing strategy

Take advantage of these TikTok trends and more in your 2023 strategy. Sprout’s social listening tools can make it even easier for you to discover some of the latest trends and audio clips to use. Combine that tool with our guide on how to go viral on TikTok, you’ll have an unbeatable presence this year.

The post 8 TikTok trends to fuel your social video content in 2023 appeared first on Sprout Social.

And the pressure is on. According to a Q4 2022 Sprout pulse survey, 72% of marketers cite “keeping up with changing social trends” as their biggest challenge heading into 2023.

So what is viral marketing today? And does chasing trends still make sense these days, or should brands focus on social as part of a bigger marketing funnel instead?

With the many changes social has experienced in recent years, the concept of viral marketing deserves to be revisited. Let’s get into it.

What is viral marketing today?

Viral marketing is a style of promotion that relies on an audience to organically generate and push the message of a product or service. On social media, marketing is considered “viral” when it’s being shared rapidly by the public at large (with a compounding effect) rather than just its target audience.

If achieved, your message will be in nearly everyone’s social media feed.

How does viral marketing work, though?

Modern viral marketing on social can be illustrated by the popularity of social media memes or trending TikTok sounds. Think about how seemingly random phenomena like Baby Yoda, the Milky Way meme or the “It’s Corn” trend take over your social feeds out of nowhere. Memes get shared and promoted like crazy because they resonate with people.

The same rules apply to viral marketing, when followers and customers share a brand’s content because it’s buzz-worthy. But while platforms like TikTok and formats like Instagram Reels have made viral marketing easier for brands, not all brands will achieve the universal reach they’re looking for.

Pro tip: When it comes to knowing what will resonate with your audience and beyond, you don’t need to start at square one. Just look at your data.

Find out what resonates with your audience with Sprout Analytics

Sprout’s analytics options provide presentation-ready insights that let you advocate for the power of social across your organization.

Dive even deeper into audience and content insights with our Advanced Analytics and Listening options.

Start a free trial to test out our analytics dashboards.

What are the pros and cons of viral marketing?

There’s no question that achieving at least one social media viral video is on many marketers’ bucket lists.

But, hot take: Going viral has its downsides.

Let’s look at the pros and cons of viral marketing:

The pros

• Increased brand awareness: When you go from 10-1,000 average engagements to 10,000,000, you’ve officially supercharged your brand awareness and potentially gained thousands of new fans or customers.
• Audience growth: More eyes on your brand inevitably leads to more fans and followers. For example, Shedd Aquarium’s viral “penguin field trips” campaign led to thousands of new followers gained in a matter of days.

• Increased sales: With more fans and brand awareness come more potential sales to be made.
• Becoming an “it” brand: Your name in Adweek, your posts in articles like this; viral marketing puts your brand, and your marketing team, on the map and positions you as an industry trendsetter. The aforementioned Shedd Aquarium is a local destination. But they reached people on all seven continents—yes, even Antarctica.

The cons

• The reception may not be what you expect: Viral campaigns are meant to create buzz. But sometimes, that buzz isn’t the positive response you’re hoping for.
• Losing control of your content and message: Once your content is out there, it’s out there. It can be re-posted and commented on by anyone else with a computer, and you cannot control what they do with it.
• More fans doesn’t always mean more customers: New followers and more commenters doesn’t always translate to more sales.
• The mountain of messages: When you go viral, it’s not unusual to have thousands of new messages in your inbox—every day, or even every hour. You need to stay on top of monitoring messages, without battling additional social media burnout. If you want to lean into viral marketing, using a tool like Sprout lets you capture all incoming messages across all your channels, filter and manage them in one central Smart Inbox hub.

What are some notable viral marketing examples?

One of our favorite viral marketing examples is the McDonald’s “can I get uhhhhhh” campaign—a commercial that played during The Big Game in 2022 (you know the one) and translated into wildly popular Tweets. By tapping into a relatable customer experience familiar to their audience, this campaign took off.

In 2022, Iceland tourism created a viral campaign that advertised their stunning scenery to potential travelers…with a touch of absurdism. They “trained” three horses to “respond” to visitors’ emails while they were away from work.

And one of the co-founders of break-out water brand “Liquid Death” credits viral marketing, in part, for the brand’s meteoric rise. In 2017, they launched a commercial on a minimal budget before they had a product. The commercial went viral, and their Facebook page racked up more followers than their major competitors in just a few months.

Since then, they’ve continued to tap into viral marketing campaigns that lean on humor and shock. In 2021, they sold a skateboard designed with paint mixed with Tony Hawk’s blood.

IHOP’s 2018 “IHOB” campaign, which saw the brand temporarily deem themselves the “International House of Burgers,” is another of the most notable viral marketing examples.

Although the brand saw some criticism for their bait-and-switch, the numbers from the campaign don’t lie.

Bear in mind that viral campaigns aren’t always humorous or light-hearted.

Popular campaigns like Always’ “Like a Girl,” the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge and Gillette’s “Be a Man” ads tackle serious issues and stigmas. The popularity of these ads goes hand-in-hand with the rise of the need for authenticity on social and brands getting real.

What do most viral marketing campaigns have in common?

Although viral content varies wildly from business to business, there are three distinct elements that most campaigns share. Keep these in mind when trying to assess whether or not a campaign has the potential for serious buzz.

1. They’re organic

Reality check: Viral campaigns can’t be forced.

Content spreads organically. That’s how viral marketing works. Your audience ultimately decides what’s worth sharing.

Often, it’s about being at the right place at the right time (or rather, saying the right thing at the right time). You can’t really rationalize memes or crazes such as the “does pineapple belong on pizza” debate.

That said, marketers can set up their content for sharing by having a pulse on social trends (more on how you can achieve that later).

2. They’re timely

Trends come and go.

Although viral marketing campaigns have the potential to leave an impression on customers or the public, people have short attention spans for hot topics and trends. By the time one trend blows up, we’re often looking for the next craze.

Brands should be wary of trying to repeat viral campaigns or exhaust a popular trend. Just because something’s hot now doesn’t mean it’ll have staying power for years to come. It’s the reason why brands aren’t still parodying the “Harlem Shake” or “Gangnam Style.”

3. They’re bold

Bear in mind, there’s an inherent risk involved with viral marketing campaigns and tactics.

Going viral means doing something that grabs the public’s attention. That doesn’t happen by accident, nor does it happen by playing it safe.

For example, Liquid Death’s initial commercial and campaigns like their Tony Hawk collab are bold, and hard to scroll past.

Not all viral marketing campaigns are controversial, but they tend to be out of left field.

And with that, we uncover the big potential downside of viral marketing: going viral for the wrong reasons. Remember Kendall Jenner’s infamous 2017 Pepsi ad?

Where to start with viral marketing

As highlighted in our list of 2023 social media trends, marketers want concrete results from their investments in social media.

This means that going viral is a benefit—not a replacement for a scalable social strategy.

Even so, all brands can benefit from tapping into what audiences are buzzing about and reacting in a way that fits and furthers your brand identity.

If nothing else, all marketers should have a handle on what makes social content shareable.

Here are our six tips for marketers looking to produce viral, share-worthy content and increase their visibility on social.

1. Reflect on why you want to go viral in the first place

Are you looking for more mentions? Brand awareness? Trying to catch the eyes of customers?

Aligning your viral attempts with your overall goals will guide you toward creating meaningful content rather than just throwing something together and hoping that it sticks.

You need a plan of action with your content, and viral campaigns are no different. Years ago, marketers might have tried to argue that viral content has to catch on in whatever way possible.

Times have changed, though. Not all press is “good” press anymore.

2. Become a master of social media reporting

Remember what we said earlier about your audience playing a pivotal role in what gets shared?

Whether you’re looking to curate or create viral content, you need to know what resonates with your followers.

How do you figure that out? For starters, look at which pieces of content perform best by monitoring these social media metrics:

• Audience engagement
• Keyword traffic and performance
• Page impressions
• Clicks and reach
• Demographic data

Each of these social media metrics can give you insight into what has shareable potential.

Maybe it’s a video. Perhaps it’s a meme.

Regardless, social media analytics in Sprout can break down the performance of individual pieces of content and campaigns alike.

From there, you can start to build future campaigns based on what’s worked in the past.

3. Make sure your content is primed for sharing

This might seem like a no-brainer, but you have to make sure your content is optimized for quick and easy sharing.

For example, social campaigns shouldn’t be confined to your business’ main account. From blogs and newsletters to events in your network, consider how far you can spread your message.

Then, brainstorm the best social media channels for any promotion or piece of content. For example, image-based content is fair game for Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Viral videos are prime for YouTube, TikTok and Instagram.

It’s smart to make sharing as seamless as possible. You can make your audience have an easier time sharing your campaign by:

• Providing several different routes to share (like the above penguin video published on Twitter and TikTok)
• Giving away free products or services
• Finding the common motivations of your main audience
• Asking questions that get viewers or readers thinking and talking
• Never restricting or gating your content

4. Use hashtags to spread the word

Hashtags go hand in hand with more social shares.

For the sake of awareness and easy sharing, tacking a hashtag on any given campaign is a smart move to make it more visible and memorable to your audience.

Taking the time to create a hashtag is likewise worthwhile for tracking the success of your campaigns in terms of mentions and shares.

And with the help of hashtag analytics, you can uncover other relevant hashtags your audience is using while also measuring the performance of your own.

5. When in doubt, consider trendjacking

This is arguably the easiest way to raise brand awareness without going viral yourself. Trendjacking means piggybacking your brand onto a meme, relevant pop culture reference or viral trend. This has become one of the staple marketing practices for those trying to get a piece of the viral market.

Take the “It’s Corn” trend we’ve mentioned a few times. Compare the original to how several other brands—Sprout, Shedd Aquarium and Grammarly in this case—used this trending sound to tell their own story.

Through social listening, you can tap into these sorts of trends in real time and understand whether or not they’re relevant to your audience.

6. Humanize your content

This is a straightforward tip, but an important one.

A common thread between most pieces of viral content is that they’re human.

That is, they’re organic, personable and relatable. Authenticity is essential to reaching Gen Z and younger Millennials who are often the arbiters of what goes viral.

Brands tend to see a lot more shares when their content is humanized or appears genuine. Anything you can do to remove the corporate taste of your content is a plus.

Does viral marketing make sense for your brand?

Let’s be honest: going viral in the traditional sense is tough.

That said, there’s plenty to learn from the principles of viral marketing and what it takes to produce content that catches fire.

The tips above and technology like Sprout’s analytics and social listening tools can help you keep a constant pulse on what your audience wants, and which trends to watch.

Want to see how Sprout can help you as you develop viral content, and manage your viral success? Sign up for a free 30-day trial to see how our tools change the game.

The post What is viral marketing (and does it work in 2023)? appeared first on Sprout Social.

In this article, we’ll break down the basics of using a social media calendar, along with key benefits and strategies to help manage your social content.

What is a social media calendar?

A social media calendar is a strategic, hyper-detailed plan of upcoming posts for all of your social channels organized by publish date and time. Along with the publish date and time for posts, your social media calendar can also include links, tags, @-mentions, copy and media, such as images and video.

You can use a digital calendar, spreadsheet or a social media management platform like Sprout that offers an interactive dashboard and the ability to schedule posts.

Benefits of using a social media calendar

A content calendar is the key to a successful social media plan because there are so many benefits to using one from saving time to streamlining collaboration.

Here are a few:

1: Saves time and widens team bandwidth

A social media calendar saves time by staying organized, especially when managing multiple accounts. As a social media manager, planning out a social calendar months in advance saves you from scouring trending topics and news stories every day looking for ideas. It will also give you more bandwidth to track and test different strategies to see what resonates most with your audience. Your team will also have more time to focus on creating high-quality content.

2: Maintain a consistent posting schedule

Of course, there’s no hard rule for how much you should post, but it’s important to post frequently to maintain an active presence. A social media content calendar allows teams to prioritize quality, not quantity. Plus, planning will also build greater consistency in terms of your brand voice and style, rather than posting in a reactive or unplanned way.

3: Quality assurance and brand safety

Proactive scheduling allows social teams to check their work and protect their brand’s reputation. It’s easier to catch a typo or prevent a potential public relations crisis when you aren’t rushing and a workflow approval process is in place. Using a social media calendar will help catch these mistakes sooner rather than later.

4: Streamline cross-functional collaboration

A well-crafted social media calendar improves visibility because it provides an overview of all upcoming content. A content calendar streamlines communication and cross-functional collaboration because everyone can look at the calendar and know what lies ahead. It also promotes alignment for department or organizational-wide initiatives because it provides a set posting schedule. Having a posting schedule is important because your social media should support your overall organizational marketing efforts.

For example, your team can ensure social posts sync up with larger campaigns. Stakeholders in the campaign can easily view what you have planned and provide feedback, if necessary.

How to create a social media content calendar

1. Conduct a social media audit

Before creating your social media content calendar, you need to conduct a social media audit of past content to evaluate your current online presence.

Consider the following during your audit:

• Important metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs) for each account by platform to define success
• Your brand’s goals for each account by platform
• Your target audience
• Highest and lowest performing posts and campaigns
• Opportunities for improvement or experimenting
• Publishing frequency

Pull together native analytics from sources like Twitter Analytics or Facebook Insights. If you’re using Sprout Social, you will find metrics across multiple social networks in one place: Sprout’s Report Builder.

Pay attention to your brand’s analytics to pin down what could be contributing to your highest and lowest performing posts. If you want even more ideas for your calendar, consider doing a competitive analysis during your audit. Auditing a competitor in your industry can help you identify gaps.

Completing an audit will help you identify how to curate posts for your social media calendar template and what content you should create for your audience. The goal is to give you a strategy to fill each day of your content calendar. If you’re able to identify what’s going well and opportunities for improvement, you’ll be better positioned to meet your brand’s goals.

2. Use a social media calendar template

Create a social media content calendar template to stay organized, streamline workflows, improve collaboration and track metrics. Your social media calendar template should include the following:

• Social media networks and accounts
• Date and time
• Social copy including hashtags and links
• Media (GIFs, images, video, etc.)
• Approval steps
• Space for collaboration and feedback notes
• KPIs
• Key (a color-coordinated key with labels to organize your content)

Level up your social media content calendar template with these advanced additions:

• Published post links
• UTM tracking links
• Geo-tag
• Network-specific format (Story, feed post, short-form video like Reels or TikTok, etc.)
• Associated campaigns, like a new product launch
• Approval status
• Paid or organic post (include budget details for paid posts)

These additions provide more context, especially if you want to dig deeper into tracking performance. For example, UTM tracking links enable you to measure traffic from a platform, traffic type (referral, paid or organic) and the specific campaign that brought the traffic in.

Use a digital calendar or spreadsheet for your template, or automate your calendar building with tool like Sprout’s social media calendar to lower the lift on your end.

3. Select your social media channels and content types

Now that you’ve completed an audit and created a social media content calendar template, you’re ready choose the channels and type of content you want to post.

Which channels does your audience engage with the most? And what types of content resonate with them? Lean on your analytics while brainstorming your social media post ideas and identify themes and/or categories to determine the type of content your will schedule in the content calendar.

Once you have a few basic topics in mind, go deeper with a research tool like social listening to learn more about what your audience wants to see. By using listening for competitive research, you’ll see a comprehensive view of the hashtags, keywords, brands and topics that engage with your audience across different social channels. Use this information to plan posts that are highly relevant to your audience and expand your reach to others who may be interested in your content.

Overall, make sure that the majority of the content you work into your social media calendar is intended to help your audience. While the exact mix will vary depending on your brand, niche and the types of content your audience responds to the most, a good rule of thumb is to make two-thirds of the content informational and one-third or less promotional.

While promotional content tends to be sales-focused, a constant stream can alienate followers, making it essential to prioritize engagement over selling in your social media calendar. For example, on Instagram we feature Sprouters talking about their favorite emojis:

4. Define a social media calendar posting schedule

Once you have an idea of the types of content you’re going to post, you’ll need to create a posting schedule to help keep track of ideal times for publishing.

You should aim for a sweet spot based on your audience’s preference, because social moves fast—posting too much, too little or too late can result in dropped engagement. Posting frequently is important, but don’t emphasize quantity over quality. Be wary of sharing content that is irrelevant or redundant for the sake of meeting a posting quota.

Consider the patterns that arose from your audit and competitive analysis. Take a look at publish dates and times for each platform and make a note of any specific themes. This information will help you organize and plan your posts to get the most visibility.

There’s a lot of competing information on publishing cadences. Some professionals recommend posting as regularly as possible to stay top of mind. Others suggest only posting if you have high quality and valuable information to add to the conversation.

There are also best practices around the best times to post on social media, on each platform, broken down by specific industries and niches. Check out our guide on how often to post on social media per channel to learn more. Sprout’s data science team analyzed posting frequencies for more than 30,000 Sprout Social customers to determine the industry average for some of the most popular social media networks.

Sprout also takes the guesswork out of posting cadences by analyzing the best times for you. Using a tool like Sprout’s ViralPost® feature helps you target posting times based on your individual audience data. ViralPost reviews this data and suggests Optimal Send Times for each platform you use.

5. Track and analyze your social media content calendar

Your social media calendar isn’t just a planning tool. It’s also a way to track and measure metrics across every platform you use. Analyze the information you collect from your social media campaigns and continue to optimize your social media calendar.

If you tag posts to specific campaigns, you can keep track of content that may need to be optimized or repurposed. When content performs well, save it or make a note to reintroduce it again in the future when it’s time to reevaluate your strategy again or brainstorm more upcoming posts.

For example, Sprout’s Asset Library lets you store videos, text and images in an easy-to-access library so you can re-incorporate high-performers into your social media strategy. Storing everything in a pre-approved library also ensures that all creative assets are on point in terms of quality and brand style guidelines.

Account for specific campaigns across different social platforms. Different social media platforms serve different purposes, so you should plan strategically when looking to increase the reach of a given post on other platforms. It’s important to remember that just because a post is popular on one platform, doesn’t mean it will perform well on others.

6. Improve your social media calendar by sharing across teams

You probably work frequently with other teams within your organization since social is a key pillar for many brands’ marketing strategies. Social media collaboration can strengthen your content and help your brand reach organizational goals. Seek feedback from your team and marketing stakeholders to improve your social media calendar. The goal here is to iterate your social media calendar as your marketing strategy and business evolves.

Including teams outside marketing will give you fresh ideas for things to post, while also supporting priorities across the organization. The product team can let you know when new features, services or products will be launching. Human resources and public relations can remind you of important dates and company milestones worth posting about.

Modern social teams work with a variety of teams and stakeholders, so you need an easy and reliable way to make sure that everyone involved can access the right tools, accounts and organize their deliverables. When your calendar is integrated into a social media management platform like Sprout Social, you increase the visibility of what needs to be created and approved across contributors.

Sprout’s content calendar include tools like approval workflows that emphasize collaboration so you can grant people in different departments access to relevant parts of the social media calendar.

Social media calendar apps

There are many social media management tools and social media scheduling tools out there to choose from. Here’s a quick overview of our top three favorite tools:

Google Calendar/Sheets

Google Calendar and Sheets are free and fairly intuitive to use. There are a bounty of social media calendar templates you can use from Google Sheets and Calendar. Both apps can be used to allow users to easily view upcoming posts and add comments for feedback and other collaboration.

Notion

Notion is a powerful note taking app, but it’s also a tool for marketers. The app has a database feature that can be used to create templates, including social media calendars. Notion is highly customizable and collaborative so users can easily view the status of content and give feedback via comments all within one platform.

Sprout Social

Okay, so yes, we’re definitely tooting our own horn here, but Sprout’s tools will truly help your social media team.

Our interactive content calendar’s publishing and scheduling tools are designed to increase visibility, improve team efficiency and boost customer loyalty, so social teams have more bandwidth for creative efforts, like participating in relevant trends. For instance, you can follow up on your scheduled posts by establishing a process for responding and engaging with your audience.

With Sprout, you can assign replies to different members of the team, which ensures that your followers always get a timely response when they tag you or comment on a post. Sprout’s Asset Library can also be used to create Auto-Responses and Saved Replies to frequently asked questions on social media. If your company handles support through a separate social media team your marketing team can always control the messaging, no matter who is posting.

Essentially, Sprout’s interactive content calendar allows you to manage the social experience, end to end.

Level up with a social media calendar

Your time is too valuable to spend deciding what to post every single day. A well-planned social media content calendar lets you use your time to plan for the future and focus on other aspects of your marketing strategy. Take your content planning to the next level with Sprout’s social media calendar features.

The post A complete guide to creating a social media calendar appeared first on Sprout Social.

When taking an employee advocacy program up the chain, employee advocacy stats should be the backbone of your pitch. Decision makers want to see proof of success and the measurable benefits your company will gain by launching a brand amplification program.

Keep reading for statistics on employee brand advocacy that will grab the attention of multiple leaders across your C-suite.

The employee advocacy statistics your boss needs to see

According to The Sprout Social Index™, more than two-thirds (68%) of marketers report their organization already has an advocacy program.

While many advocacy programs are informal side projects, sophisticated brands will find ways to formalize and evolve them through dedicated staff, tools, processes and employee training.

Of the 1,000+ marketers we asked, those that had an advocacy program stated their top three objectives were increasing brand awareness, attracting qualified job applicants and having more control over brand messaging. Other reasons included driving more qualified leads, establishing thought leadership and creating new networking opportunities.

And employees want to post about their companies. According to Sprout’s Employee Advocacy Report, 72% of engaged users would post about their company if content was written for them.

Your C-suite pitch: Traditional social media tactics are becoming less reliable. Organizations leading the advocacy charge have an edge over their competitors. In the face of limited resources, changing algorithms and congested feeds, an advocacy program is a company’s greatest asset to amplify content, increase ROI and recruit top talent.

Using Sprout’s Employee Advocacy platform is the easiest way to launch a brand advocacy program. In the platform, you provide pre-approved messaging that your team can share from one centralized hub. And your internal team can curate the articles directly in Sprout. Employees are empowered to post authentically, while feeling confident they’re staying on-brand.

Stats that prove the impact of advocacy on brand amplification

Advocacy supercharges your brand awareness efforts and enables you to amplify your reach beyond what you could achieve with organic tactics alone.

Take IT software company Ivanti. After creating a brand ambassador program with the help of Sprout’s Advocacy platform, the organization reached 16 million people on social media in the first month.

We had similar results at Sprout. In 2022, content shared through our Advocacy platform earned more impressions than all our social networks combined. In fact, 95% of the 740,000 impressions earned from our recent Salesforce global partnership announcement were driven by posts our employees shared.

Your C-suite pitch: Across industries, organic social performance has taken a hit. Tapping into employee networks is the most impactful way to amplify your best performing content and spike impressions—without stretching your bandwidth or ad budget.

Sprout’s Advocacy platform automatically measures shares, engagements and reach, so you can see your amplification impacts in real-time.

Stats that prove the impact of advocacy on revenue

Enlisting your employees as brand advocates isn’t just key to increasing awareness, it has serious effects on your bottom line and sales targets.

First, advocacy enables you to scale and amplify your best performing content so you can generate qualified leads without straining your ad budget. For example, at Sprout, we reached almost $450,000 in earned media value in 2022, while Ivanti achieved more than $500,000.

Second, according to Sprout’s Employee Advocacy Report, posting company content helps employees accomplish their day-to-day tasks and long-term goals—including social selling. About 72% of engaged social media users and 62% of casual users say sharing company posts helps their social selling efforts.

Empowering your employees to share meaningful content positions them as thought leaders in your industry, helping them generate new business opportunities. As LinkedIn reports, salespeople who regularly share about their company on social media are 45% more likely to exceed their quota.

Your C-suite pitch: Advocacy unlocks revenue gains by complementing your demand generation efforts. From achieving earned media value to empowering your team members to do their best work, investing in an employee brand amplification strategy pays in dividends.

Sprout’s Employee Advocacy reporting tools give you the data needed to quantify your advocacy program, and to connect results to leads, event registrations and more.

Stats that prove the impact of advocacy on hiring (and keeping) top talent

Potential new hires will research your company on social, keeping an eye out for what your current employees think about it. Afterall, your employees’ perspectives matter three times more to prospective candidates than your CEO’s. When employees celebrate your company culture, they elevate your employer brand and increase interest in your company.

In a recent Sprout survey of 1,000 consumers, 87% of Millennial respondents indicated that they feel more connected to brands when they see employees sharing information online, and 81% think it’s important for employees to post about their company (up from 72% in our previous survey).

Advocacy also invites your current employees to be stewards of your brand, fostering a sense of ownership, loyalty and belonging. When employees have a stake in your company, it improves their long-term morale, engagement and retention.

Your C-suite pitch: Creating employee advocates strengthens your recruitment and retention strategies. Advocacy expands your candidate pool and generates positive social sentiment and buzz that increases your application volume.

From Sprout’s platform, you can draft and send custom internal newsletters. Broadcast curated stories about open roles, company achievements and employer brand content so your employees can share the posts from their inbox with one click.

Why Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social is worth the investment

Employee Advocacy by Sprout Social is the easiest way to extend your social reach, increase brand awareness, drive sales and attract talent—while satisfying your employees with an easy-to-use platform.

Like one Sprout customer in the healthcare industry who increased their engagements by 200% in six months after launching their advocacy program. Their employees also reported 98% satisfaction with the platform.

Calculate how your business can benefit from using the Employee Advocacy platform with our ROI calculator.

The post Employee advocacy stats to secure C-level buy-in appeared first on Sprout Social.

There are so many social media contest ideas out there that could be a perfect fit for your brand, and they can even be a stellar tactic for building a library of user-generated content and new followers.

Throughout this article, we’re going to dive deeper into what an Instagram giveaway is and why you’d want to host one—plus a step-by-step showcasing how to put on your own giveaway successfully.

Why should you host an Instagram giveaway?

An Instagram giveaway or contest tends to start with an Instagram post that asks your audience to complete some sort of task to enter into a giveaway to win a free product or prize. This type of campaign can generate a lot of excitement around your brand, bringing in new eyes and increasing reach and engagement… sometimes by a lot.

There are a number of benefits to employing this strategy—let’s cover the most important ones.

Get more followers

Many brands require that users entering their giveaway must first follow them on Instagram. Follow-gating your giveaway like this ensures that your Instagram following grows alongside your entries. While you’ll likely start receiving entries from those who already follow you, prepare to see some growth as your giveaway gains traction.

Generate higher engagement

Instagram giveaways can generate higher engagement on specific posts (your giveaway announcement, obviously)—but it can also improve your engagement overall. Algorithms work in funny ways, but once it realizes that you’re getting a lot more engagement than usual, it’ll start to place your content in front of even more eyes, boosting your total engagement.

Increase reach and impressions

Similarly, your Instagram giveaway can help you increase your overall reach and impressions. The more engagement on your giveaway posts, the more likely your content will be shown to followers. If users keep seeing your content and interacting with it, you’ll pop up at the top of their feeds more often, helping to increase your reach.

Create an opportunity to collaborate with others

Lastly, Instagram giveaways present a great collaboration opportunity. Many brands (as you’ll see us cover shortly) choose to co-host giveaways. Find a brand with a product that’s complementary to yours (i.e., if you sell silk pillowcases, collab with a brand that sells hair masks) and give away those products together in a beautiful little bundle.

Types of Instagram giveaways

There are five main types of Instagram giveaways that you’ll see brands utilize. We’ll walk you through how each of these works and why you might want to choose that route.

1. Like, comment and follow

One of the most popular methods of entry is to have people like your photo announcing your Instagram contest, leave a comment and follow your account in order to gain entry.

Or, you could make commenting the most important part of the entry, like we see in this fun holiday-themed giveaway from Edible Arrangements:

When you use this tactic, simply name your prize, lay down the ground rules and watch the entries fly in. You can ask people to comment on why they should win, nominate someone to win or simply tag a friend to spread the word.

That last option is a great contest idea all on its own — read on for more ways to make tagging friends in contests work effectively.

2. Tag a friend

Want to really get the word out about your Instagram contest? Ask people to tag a friend when they enter! Users can tag as many friends as they like in order to get even more entries.

Then, those users are likely to enter and tag some of their own friends, creating a ripple effect of awareness around your contest and brand. You can also host a tag-a-friend Instagram contest in order to ask your followers to nominate someone who deserves a prize.

Here’s an example of what this might look like from Edible Arrangements:

Edible Arrangements asked users to enter the contest by tagging a friend in the comments. Many giveaways allow users to tag multiple friends as a way of entering more than once, increasing their chances.

3. User-generated content

If you’re looking to put together a campaign around gathering user-generated content (UGC) to share online, creating an Instagram giveaway around that concept can be a great way to do it.

Ask your audience to share a photo onto their feed using a specific branded hashtag or tagging your business so that you can easily find all of the entries in one place.

Not only does this reward your customers for helping you out, but it gives you an entire arsenal of user-generated photos to share on your feed for future content planning.

Because this type of giveaway entry requires a lot more effort on your audiences’ part, you’ll want to make the prize worth it.

4. Collaboration

As we mentioned earlier, another way to broaden your audience is by collaborating with a similar brand for your giveaway prizes. This way, the audiences of all involved brands can learn about new, similar brands, and have an even better prize at the end.

Here’s an example of this type of collaborative giveaway where three brands got together to offer a major prize bundle as their giveaway prize:

Many influencers also host collaborative giveaways like this, meant to help their followers discover new brands and bloggers, and vice versa.

If you’re working to grow your Instagram presence, a collaborative contest or giveaway might be your best bet.

5. Instagram Stories

While Instagram contests are all about giving back to your audience, there are important benefits for your overall Instagram marketing strategy too: brands can garner a lot of attention and generate a bigger audience through them as well.

Having your audience share a post on their Instagram Stories as a form of entry can be another great way to get the word out there.

It’s super easy for users to share posts to their Instagram Stories, so asking for something like this as an entry isn’t asking too much of your audience, and can be a great way to spread the word.

How to run an Instagram giveaway in 6 steps

Running an Instagram giveaway is a fun way to increase engagement and followers, but you need to follow the right steps to maximize your success. Utilize this blueprint for your next contest or giveaway to make sure you’re covering your bases before you announce the prize(s).

1. Define your Instagram giveaway goals

Before anything else, you need to make sure you define the overall objective of your Instagram giveaway. Otherwise, how will you determine whether or not it was successful in the end?

A few questions you might ask yourself to determine your goals are:

• Are you trying to engage your audience more in your content?
• Are you aiming to generate a larger following?
• Is your plan to build a library of UGC to share on social media?

This is going to determine what type of Instagram giveaway you run. Whatever your main goal or objective is, keep it in mind throughout your entire contest planning process so that everything you do makes sense for your end goal.

2. Identify your budget and prizes

The next step is to identify what your budget is and how large of a prize or prize bundle you’re able to give away for free. You might start with a single, small prize for your first giveaway to test the waters before eventually moving onto a larger prize down the road.

Keep in mind that your prize should be specific to your target audience and something unique for hem to win.

For example, a cash prize or an iPad or iPhone could apply to anyone, whereas a gift card or limited edition product from your shop would appeal only to the people who would buy from you anyways. This helps engage your target audience further and can also help your awareness goals. If the winner posts their own photos of the products they received from your contest, you’ll get additional awareness and reach out of your efforts.

3. Plan and run your Instagram giveaway or contest

First things first, are you running a giveaway or a contest?

For the most part, these are one in the same. However, some brands choose to create more in-depth contests, where entrants are asked to put their best foot forward and a winner is selected by their performance.

A giveaway, though, has a randomly-selected entrant win the prize.

The next thing to consider is how users will enter your Instagram contest. Think back to the examples we shared above. Which contest or giveaway type falls most in line with your main goal or objective?

Whatever you decide, make sure it’s easy for people to enter your contest. No one is going to enter a contest that requires them to do a lot of work–people want your entry process to be simple and easy.

Once you decide the best entry method for your contest, it’s time to start planning out the rest of the details.

First, determine how long your Instagram contest will last. How many days will your audience have to enter? Make sure that deadline is predetermined and that you clearly let your audience know when entering will end.

Second, are you going to use a hashtag for your campaign? Whether you have people post photos with that hashtag or ask them to use it in the comments, creating a campaign-specific hashtag that no one else is using is a good idea. This way, you’ll be able to tell the contest entries from regular posts about your brand.

Third, what is the theme for your contest? This is especially important for UGC-focused contests. You want to make sure your audience knows what types of photos you’re looking for them to share.

And finally, how will you notify the winner? Will you tag them in a comment? Share a new post? Message them? Tag them in an Instagram Story?

These are all things you need to plan before you launch the contest.

4. Design your campaign assets

Next, you need to put together campaign assets to announce and promote your Instagram contest. Not only will this draw attention to followers, it’ll help you cross-promote it on various platforms, in your email newsletter, on your website and more.

Create imagery for both your Instagram feed and to share on your Instagram Stories to increase the number of followers who see the contest early on, giving you plenty of time to collect entries. You’ll want these to stand out and increase the total number of entries. Consider getting high-quality photos of the prize and add “GIVEAWAY” or similar copy in big, bold lettering to the top of your graphic.

Next, you need to think about your captions. Start with an attention-grabbing hook so that you can reel viewers in. Then explain what the prize is, how to enter the giveaway and what the overall rules are. You must also follow Instagram’s terms and release them of any affiliation with the giveaway.

5. Measure your giveaway entry results

Keep a close eye on how many people are entering your giveaway, if you’re receiving any questions about it and how many relevant entries are coming in with the giveaway hashtag.

Use a social media management tool such as Sprout Social to generate reports on hashtag and keyword use, follower count, engagement rate and more.

Keep an eye on all related posts and comments so that you can pinpoint whether or not you met your initial goal with the giveaway. If increased awareness or reach is one of your goals, track the performance of your giveaway hashtags in the Instagram Business Profiles Report to measure the hashtags associated with your brand. You’ll be able to tell if your branded giveaway hashtag is creating the buzz you’re looking for:

Also pay attention during and right after the giveaway to see if you’ve generated an influx in sales as well.

6. Select your winner with an Instagram giveaway picker

Once your giveaway timeframe has ended, it’s time to choose a winner. The best way to do this is by using an Instagram giveaway picker tool. There are a number of available tools for you to take advantage of specifically for these purposes.

Many brands will even record themselves using a tool to select the winner and share the video on their Instagram Stories as a way to prove that the winner truly has been randomly chosen.

A few popular Instagram giveaway pickers include:

1. Wask
2. GiveawayPick
3. Comment Picker
4. Iconosquare

Turn Instagram giveaway entrants into customers

Start running your own Instagram giveaways to boost your followers, increase social media engagement and, best of all, ramp up conversions. By introducing new people to your product, you’re increasing the chances of introducing someone to your brand for the first time and becoming a customer.

For even more ideas on how to convert your social media audience into customers, check out the latest Sprout Social Index™.

The post How to run an Instagram giveaway or contest successfully appeared first on Sprout Social.

If you’re wondering how social media consistency can help you improve your social strategy, build your audience and contribute to revenue growth like Figo Pet Insurance, you’re in the right place. In this piece, the team behind Figo’s social media presence shared their tips for maintaining a regular social cadence and translating results to larger company goals.

Why social media consistency matters for brands

Consistency on social media isn’t just nice to have: it’s a non-negotiable for long-term success. Here are the four leading reasons why social media consistency matters.

Practice makes perfect

Bridgett Colling, Director of Marketing and Communications at Figo, saw the opportunity to expand her brand’s TikTok presence. But she knew success on the app was only possible with volume and consistency.

“The most successful brands are the ones who create a lot of video content. They get the reps in and make content all the time. It’s a numbers game. So, that’s the approach we took to TikTok.”

Though posting up to five times per week was a stretch for her small team, Colling said it paid off by allowing them to hone their craft and really go for it.

The consistency allowed Cheyanne Rains, Figo’s Social Media Coordinator, to develop her own social media video template to make video creation more efficient. Many of the videos she creates—including their highest performing video—take 15 minutes to develop from start to finish.

Outperform your competition

Sprout’s data science team analyzed posting frequency across more than 30,000 Sprout customers and found that the industry average is 11 posts per day across all social channels. And on TikTok, providing your audience with fresh and diverse content daily is the best way to crack the algorithm and end up on the coveted #ForYouPage.

Bridgett saw this play out firsthand. “Even as a smaller, younger pet insurance brand, our consistency sets our performance apart from more established competitors.” She says Figo often matches or surpasses its competitors’ views, engagements and share of voice.

To track those metrics, Cheyanne uses Sprout’s Competitive Analysis Report (see image above) to compare Figo’s results side-by-side with competitors. The findings help Figo reinforce the value of social at their company and pulse-check brand health.

Make space to experiment

As Cheyanne puts it, experimentation was the theme of Figo’s 2022 video strategy. By posting every work day, she could identify which content types generated the highest impressions and engagements.

Cheyanne explains, “Trending sounds and memes related to pets and pets insurance drive the highest engagements. Listicles are also high-performing videos.” She returned to these formats again and again to produce a pipeline of successful content.

Even with solid success from these formats, Figo’s consistent posting cadence left space for new ideas, too–like their “Ask the Vet Tech” series, which amplifies their internal thought leadership and provides unique value to their community.

A regular posting schedule empowers your team to never stop testing and learning. If you’d like to see another example, in Sprout’s TikTok testing strategy we analyze our highest- and lowest-performing videos to reveal how we should adjust our content moving forward.

Build an audience

Going viral on TikTok was an impressive milestone for Figo. But Bridgett pointed out virality wasn’t their number one priority. What’s more important than going viral is finding and building a genuine community on social media.

For Cheyanne, connecting with people required understanding the culture of TikTok. “People use TikTok to watch videos that average people make with their phones. Keep your videos as authentic as possible. Talk like a real person behind the screen and avoid a sales-y approach.”

The TikTok algorithm delivers a niche, personalized experience. To reach your audience, you must dig into the topics they care about and put out relevant content consistently. Cheyanne explains, “Stay on top of trends within your community. Not just trending sounds and memes, but the topics people are talking about. Pay attention to how you can relate them back to your brand.”

Sometimes relating to your audience can be a challenge. Cheyanne revealed a well-kept secret that will surprise Figo’s followers: she doesn’t have a pet. Gasp!

So how does Figo churn out so many adorable fur baby videos? By tapping into another important audience: their internal team. Cheyanne uses an internal messaging channel to source participants. The footage her coworkers provide helps her stay consistent and humanize Figo’s brand, like this meet the team post demonstrates.

Use social media consistency to grow your revenue

Once you’ve mastered social media consistency, use it to strategically increase your revenue.

These are the four steps the Figo team followed to launch their TikTok account and translate channel growth into revenue gains.

1. Get leadership buy-in

You can’t build a presence on any platform overnight. You need the long-term support of executives behind you—even before you start seeing results. Bridgett describes her CMO’s support as “vital” to her brand’s success.

Apply it: If you want to branch out to a new network or experiment with emerging technology, pitch your vision to leadership. Show them how opportunities on social media can drive long-term business value. Get them on board to allocate time and resources to your strategy.

2. Repurpose content efficiently

For a small team like Figo, repurposing successful content from their blog and other social networks was key to staying consistent on TikTok. This year, they’re expanding their focus to YouTube using the same method.

Apply it: When you’re trying to stay consistent on social, you don’t need to start from scratch. Maximize your existing assets and draw on the success of other platforms. You’ll save your company time and money, and increase your ROI (more on that soon). Plus, you already know the content resonates with your audience. Just be sure to meet community expectations on each platform.

3. Turn organic performance into paid amplification

As an experiment, Figo started running ads on TikTok in late 2021. The initial returns were minimal. Bridgett says, “TikTok didn’t start pushing people down the funnel until the organic presence took off.”

By 2022, Figo earned credibility and built a following, which made it possible to identify their best-performing videos and put money behind them.

Apply it: A consistent, organic posting strategy goes hand-in-hand with running successful ads. You need to post regularly to attract your audience and test what works (without blowing your budget). A hybrid paid and organic social media strategy drives long-term results.

4. Measure ROI and share your results

For Cheyanne, whose primary focus is increasing brand awareness, understanding the complex digital buyer’s journey is important. In her role, she uses Sprout’s reporting tools to demonstrate the fruit of her efforts. She combines her brand awareness metrics with paid ads results and revenue gains to tell the complete story of Figo’s success on TikTok.

Apply it: With a tool like Sprout, you can access all your social media analytics and generate reports to share with your team in one place. For example, the TikTok Profile Report captures how many posts you published, how many views you received (including paid) and your total engagements.

Use these rich sources of social data to calculate your ROI and socialize your results internally.

Start your free Sprout trial

Streamline your publishing and reporting with Sprout Social

Even though consistency is key to growing your presence (and your revenue), we know you face barriers to posting regularly. Limited time and resources. Lengthy approval periods. Uncooperative algorithms.

Sprout’s publishing and reporting tools empower you to streamline your internal processes, keep up with best practices and simplify social media consistency. Just as our tools are Figo’s secret sauce to accomplishing their posting goals, you can use them to power your posting strategy.

Social Listening

Sprout’s Listening tools help you build a deeper understanding of your audience and competitors. Learn what’s trending in your industry and how you stack up against your top competitors when it comes to sentiment, share of voice and engagement.

Publishing Calendar

The Publishing Calendar makes quick work of drafting, approving and scheduling social content so your team has more time to focus on fine-tuning your strategy. Like Cheyanne says, “I schedule posts in Sprout so I don’t have to worry about it the rest of the week.” Sprout gives you the tools to replace time-consuming tasks—like logging into the native apps—with automated ease.

Gain insights from social data

Sprout’s Analytics tools speed up data collection and distribution so brands can focus on the KPIs that matter, inform strategy and prove ROI.

Use data to enhance your strategy and craft effective paid and organic campaigns. With analytics alongside publishing and engagement tools in the Sprout platform, you can easily turn insights into action.

Now that you are well-versed in the benefits of social media consistency, learn how real brands combine insights from Listening and Premium Analytics to drive powerful results with their social data.

The post How social media consistency drives business results appeared first on Sprout Social.

Over the past few years, we’ve watched businesses like Wendy’s, Duolingo and more earn new fans—and customers—off their innovative brand accounts. This success isn’t random. It’s all a part of a carefully crafted approach to building and maintaining a social media marketing strategy.

In this article, we’re breaking down all the moving parts that go into making those strategies run smoothly. Use these social media management fundamentals to inform your company’s processes so you can build a follow-worthy presence across the platforms that matter most.

• What is social media management?
• How to manage social media profiles
• Social media content creation
• Team member management
• Reputation management
• Management and scheduling tools
• Paid social media ads
• Social media community management
• Additional social media management resources

What is social media management?

Social media management is the ongoing process of creating and scheduling content designed to grow and nurture an audience across social media platforms. This includes, but is not limited to:

• Social media content strategy
• Online reputation management
• Community management and programming
• Paid social media strategy and execution
• Team member management and development

The benefits of social media management go far beyond raising brand awareness and staying current on the latest internet trends. The channel is key to building more personal connections with target audiences at scale. The rapport developed on social can build brand trust, affinity and best of all, loyalty.

The evolution of social media management

The definition of social media management is anything but fixed. Platforms and trends are constantly changing, meaning the responsibilities that go into managing a brand account are always changing as well.

For example, in less than a few years we’ve seen the creator economy completely transform how we post on social. The rise of social messaging has brought conversations from public to private, creating more personal connections between people and the brands they love. Social commerce has revolutionized how business leaders perceive the channel, taking it from awareness-focused to a full-funnel experience.

These developments prove one thing: social is driving how consumers interact with businesses, making social media roles business critical.

The role of a social media manager

Social media managers are responsible for developing the strategies that maintain and grow a social presence, on top of administrative and team development tasks. Any given day might involve content creation, campaign strategies, career planning, analytics reporting—the list goes on.

Being successful in such a fluid role requires a unique set of skills, including but not limited to:

• Adaptability
• Organization
• Creativity
• Curiosity
• Critical thinking

Combined, these talents help social media professionals manage the evolving needs of this business-critical channel.

How to manage social media profiles

It is both an art and a science to manage social media accounts. Your data can give you a good idea of how to spend your resources—in terms of both money and time—but social moves quickly. The platform delivering results today might take a dip tomorrow.

Diversifying your network strategy is a reliable way to ensure that you’re ready for whatever challenges are thrown at you. An algorithm update on one platform is less of a shock to the system if you have a well-maintained presence across the social landscape.

This is where a social media management tool becomes a must-have. Posting natively (requiring logging into each social network individually in order to post) across social media profiles is a huge time commitment. Factor in engagement and monitoring, and it becomes more than a full-time job.

Tools like Sprout help businesses scale social operations sustainably. Publishing workflows support customization by network while minimizing risk. After all, managing quality control is much harder when your team is running social natively.

These features automate and complement existing processes so you can get out of the weeds and into the bigger picture.

Finding your brand’s target audience on social

The key to creating impactful content is identifying your target audience. These are the people that sit within your brand’s total addressable market. Zeroing in on these individuals will allow you to create more effective messaging across your social media profiles.

To better find and appeal to your brand’s target audience, ask the following questions:

• Who is your current audience?
• What kind of information are they looking for and why?
• Where do they go for this information?
• What topics and cultural moments interest them?
• Which brands do they trust, and what can you learn from them?

The answers to these prompts will inform your approach to social—what platforms you’re present on, how your brand sounds online, what trends appeal to your audience and how you connect with customers.

Getting to know your audience is not a one-time-only practice. Asking yourself and your team these questions on a routine basis can keep everyone in a customer-first mindset.

Social media content creation

Content creation is a fundamental aspect of social media management. People may log on to their favorite social networks to connect with friends and family, but more than one-third (36.3%) stay to fill time.

You can use these spare moments to create lasting connections with your audience, but the competition is stiff. On social, you’re not only up against direct competitors, but other elements vying for attention on these platforms. Marketers need to account for other sources of content, like media outlets, publications and creators.

To stand out, you need to know what people want.

Is your audience looking for entertainment? Commentary on trending topics? A community? Tips and tricks? There are a lot of different reasons consumers turn to brands on social. Finding out where you fit can help your business maintain relevance in an always-on social landscape.

When it comes to formats, the most engaging type of in-feed social content is short-form video. It gained popularity thanks to the meteoric rise of TikTok and has now spread to every major social platform in some way or another.

Short-form video is a powerful way to capture your audience’s attention without requiring a major time commitment on their end. However, a diversified social media marketing strategy makes use of all types of content. This may seem overwhelming, but it’s actually an opportunity in disguise.

You can use a single live video stream to create dozens of short-form video clips, GIFs, text posts and more. At Sprout, we use our See Social Differently podcast to inform posts across networks like Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn and TikTok.

Team member management

Data from The Sprout Social Index™ 2022 shows that more than three-fourths (88%) of marketers anticipate expanding their team over the next two years.

This type of growth can be an amazing opportunity, but it does come with a learning curve. Developing your team’s talent also means committing to your ongoing development.

Here are four skills to work on as you build out your social media team:

• Reporting and analytics: As you move into a people management position, you’ll find yourself having to speak on behalf of your team’s efforts more often. Understanding how to gather and synthesize data is key to explaining the impact of your social media management strategy.
• Time management: This one is especially critical in hybrid or remote work. Stand-ups, one-on-ones, project kickoffs and all the other meetings that need to happen to execute a strategy can quickly eat away at your calendar. Protect your time by scheduling designated focus hours and conducting regular meeting audits.
• Feedback: Being able to give and receive constructive feedback is more than a skill. It’s a superpower. The majority of HR leaders (89%) agree that ongoing peer feedback is the secret to better business outcomes.
• Empathy: Most social media professionals have to stay online through brand crises, world tragedies and times of uncertainty. Don’t wait until someone is battling burnout to start taking preventative measures. Advocate for your team by keeping mental health at the forefront of your conversations during the good times and the bad.

Reputation management

Have you ever thought about buying from a company only to find out they have poor online reviews? Did you follow through on that purchase? If you didn’t, you’re not alone.

According to a study from BrightLocal, just 3% of shoppers say they would consider using a business with an average rating of two or fewer stars.

Social media reputation management is a critical yet often overlooked aspect of social media management. While it may not fall under a social professional’s core responsibilities, it’s vital to the success of all businesses.

If you’re new to online reputation management, here are three rules that can guide your strategy:

1. Ask for reviews with tact

You don’t have to wait for reviews to roll in on their own. Sometimes, you just need to ask.

Reach out to fans and power users to see if they’d be interested in sharing their experiences with your product or services. Be sure to make the process as easy as possible. Providing a specific prompt or template can increase customer follow-through.

2. Respond to both the good and the bad

That same BrightLocal survey found that more than half of consumers are unlikely to use businesses that don’t respond to reviews.

Responding to negative reviews can be difficult but it’s also a powerful way to let consumers know that you hear and respect their feedback.

3. Be proactive about risk management

Feedback won’t always come through direct channels. People often will talk about your business on their personal profiles without tagging or mentioning your brand account.

A social listening strategy can help you stay on top of the many conversations surrounding your business and industry. Use a social listening tool (like Sprout’s!) to support an opportunity-driven brand reputation management strategy that helps you create lasting connections with your audience.

Management and scheduling tools

Managing an active social media presence with native publishing tools was challenging five years ago. Today, it’s virtually impossible to do alone.

Between sharing content, responding to consumers and managing paid initiatives, social media calendars are more jam-packed than ever. Businesses must invest in social media management and scheduling tools to keep up with the demands of a modern social media strategy.

These tools can do more than save time. The benefits of a social media management tool include the following:

• Increased brand awareness with optimized post times for improved performance.
• Better engagement by consolidating inbound messages into a single location for faster response times.
• Improved analytics that provide a more holistic view into the overall performance of your social strategy.

Adopting a social media management tool can enrich your entire marketing tech stack, making it easier to connect the dots on social’s impact across your organization.

Managing a social media calendar

Your social media content strategy outlines the overarching themes that inform your publishing schedule and how it relates to business goals. Your social media content calendar provides a more granular look at what you’re posting and when across platforms.

In an ideal state, your content calendar can support organization and brainstorming. A bird’s eye view of your upcoming social media posts can help determine if you’re hitting the content mix outlined in your strategy.

For example, say recruiting top talent is a high priority for your business. A look at your social media content calendar can tell you whether or not you have enough employer brand posts scheduled over the next week or month.

This visibility will make it easier to identify which content themes need more attention. Pro tip: if you’re using Sprout, you can use the Calendar Notes feature to keep track of potential content ideas.

Paid social media ads

If you’re weighing the merits of relying on organic vs. paid social media, don’t worry—there’s no need to choose.

Your organic efforts support long-term relationships with your followers. Your social media advertising strategy, on the other hand, will help you reach new audiences quickly and reliably through targeting.

Managing your organic and paid efforts together can keep a brand top of mind with existing and prospective customers. If you can manage them within the same tool, that’s even better.

For example, Sprout supports in platform paid social promotion and reporting so marketers can keep their finger on the pulse of their performance. That way, you can ensure money is being spent effectively and make any necessary adjustments if it’s not.

Social media community management

Online communities have been around for a while, but they’ve never been more important than they are today.

Take Canva’s Facebook group for instance. Canva Design Circle is home to more than 250,000 members seeking peer-to-peer design advice.

The conversations happening within the group might not always be product-focused—they don’t have to be. Posts that aren’t product-related still provide their team with an invaluable look into the needs of their audience.

Thanks to the rise of communities like these and vertical social networks, more and more people are taking their online interactions behind the walls of private groups. If you want to stay connected to your target audience, the best thing you can do is give them a place to make connections of their own and build a social community.

Like Rome, an active social media community can’t be built in a day. If you’re launching new programming or an entirely new community, take a slow and steady approach.

Start with an invite-only beta program designed for loyal customers and power users to test drive your strategy. Once you’re in a groove, you can expand to a larger audience.

Additional social media management resources

If you’re looking for more resources on social media management, we’ve gathered additional reads below that can be found throughout our site.

• Sprout’s social media management software
• Social media management tools
• Social media management costs
• Celebrity social media management
• Social media analytics & reporting guide
• Social media manager vs. community manager

Navigate the changing world of social media management with confidence

Social media provides businesses with the insights and intelligence needed to understand where they fit in today’s cultural landscape. A strong social media management strategy does more than just maintain an online presence. It can help a brand gain relevance, earn fans and future-proof itself for years to come.

When you take native publishing out of the equation, you open your team up to a world of possibilities. Sprout’s intuitive social media publishing tools minimize manual efforts so you can focus on strengthening your strategy and connecting with your customers.

The post What is social media management? Everything you need to know appeared first on Sprout Social.