We’re nearly 2 months into 2020, and I am sure we can all agree it hasn’t been the best start to the year. From the Australian fires, to storm Ciara it has been one disaster after another, but not to worry, because I am here to hopefully improve your year…!

I have now been at Superfly for nearly 4 months, and I have been learning about the world of social media management. During this time, I have gone from ‘beginner’ to ‘intermediate’ when it comes to my knowledge and understanding about social media, and how to create content to benefit both the target audience and clients. So, if you’re ready to improve your marketing this year year let’s get straight into it with my top 5 social media tips:

Top Tip No.1…SETTING UP YOUR TEMPLATES

When creating any graphic content for any social media platform, the best template size is 1500 x 1500 px… why you might ask? Well, a lot of social media platforms such as Instagram have an automatic image crop, which means you can only post images to fit a certain size which may cause you to re-size or crop part of your content. So if you use the measurements above, you’ll see that all the content will fit onto every social media platform, without cropping any of the imagery or graphics out.

Top Tip No.2… RESEARCH

ALWAYS research and learn about your target audience. Do not start creating content on social media without even knowing who will be seeing it, because the end result might be disappointing. Knowing your audience helps to improve any artwork you are producing, giving you inspiration and in depth knowledge to produce the best outcomes from an engagement, reach and click-through perspective. So, do your research or risk never fully connecting and engaging with your audience – not good for business! Here’s a few ways you can do this:

• Survey your audience to better grasp their pain points
• Look at the clients website etc. whatever information you can find on them
• Take part in conversations on forums filled with your target audience
• Respond to comments on your social media pages, and comment on other blogs and pages with the same target audience
• Reply to all comments or questions on your social media channels, positive and negative
• Collect feedback from both your client and target audience

Top Tip No.3…COMPETITIONS

I have always found when flicking through social media sites, that creating engaging competitions achieves some of the highest social media results your page can get. Nearly everyone loves a competition, and how could you not when you could win something for free! When running a competition, always keep these in mind:

• What your goals are (do you want more Facebook page likes? Instagram followers? How many?)
• Ask permission from your client (if you are managing another companies social media)
• Make sure you have a deadline (sometimes the longer the competition, the more time it gives your pages to gain acknowledgement)
• Create the competition using eye catching graphics with key information to promote your page (like, share, tag friends etc)
• PROMOTE, PROMOTE, PROMOTE!!

Top Tip No.4…THEME & BRANDING

When managing a social media account, business or personal project, I have always found that a nicely branded theme is key. This is so that you start to create a brand identity and this becomes recognisable to your target audience, making content that you upload more eye catching. When thinking of themes and how this will link to your social media platforms, always bare in mind:

• Colours (I tend to use colours that are linked with the colours in my clients logos/branding guidelines or what they have used on their website)… This creates the connection/link to the company
• Font (Use the font or a font close enough to what you or your client has used in their logo or website)
• Style (Research the type of style you or your client has/wants to use so that you create the face of the company, pushing into modern and socially engaging styles)
• Content (Think about the content you are always wanting to portray to your audience and how this links to your company)

Top Tip No.5…EXPERIMENT

To wrap all my social media top tips blog, I have left the best and arguably the MOST IMPORTANT tip until last – to experiment with your content. Since joining Superfly, I have learnt that some things that I have produced may not always work, where as content that I thought might not work has actually drawn in a lot of attention from audiences. Social media platforms and trends are forever changing and developing, so if you stay with the same content and ideas (sorry to say this, but…) you will end up being left behind as everyone else moves forward.

Keep researching the latest trends, try new content (even if it doesn’t always work) and most importantly keep your knowledge and skills up to date.

Here’s to the rest of 2020, good luck guys! ✌🏻