A Guide to Optimize Social Media Content

On July 14, 2023, Search Engine Journal revealed that social media users worldwide reached about 4.8 billion. It’s more than 92% of all internet users. In other words, most of those surfing the net frequent social media platforms.

Social media lets you connect with friends and family. It’s also a great way to keep up with the latest events or just pass the time browsing.

SM platforms offer a lot to their users. After all, an average person spends roughly two and a half hours on SM per day. 

Statista, a study by Stacy Jo Dixon

User-generated content is one of the cornerstones of social media, but so is content published by various brands, including influencers.

However, brands create their own optimized and tailor-made content to achieve various goals. There are multiple benefits to be gained from social media content optimization.

What Are the Benefits of Social Media Content Optimization?

If you want to boost the engagement rate, it’s much easier to do so with optimized content. As a brand, you can expect more likes, comments, and shares if your content appeals to the audience.

If your social media followers engage with the content, they’re more likely to turn into successful conversions. Before pushing users to take action, hook them with the content.

Optimize your content to acquire more followers. Real social media users will be happy to keep up with your latest updates if they have something interesting to look forward to in their feed. 

You should be happy with getting extra likes and shares on the content. It’s an excellent indication that you’re doing a good job with the content creation. 

The posts you publish receive positive feedback from the platform’s algorithm. If you’re lucky, the piece might end up in the trending section, ultimately leading to an even higher reach.

Make the most out of A/B testing to determine which content strategies work and which doesn’t. Take advantage of the internal analytics of a social media platform. Pay attention to how your followers interact with your content and make adjustments where necessary.

Don’t underestimate how social media allows for more opportunities to raise brand awareness. If you play your cards right, you can expect to reach new audiences. And what better way to do that to focus on valuable content?

As a brand, you should always look to expand your network. New collaboration opportunities are great when you want others to notice you.

Quality content from your side is bound to attract attention from other brands, as well as social media influencers. 

You can even go as far as taking a proactive approach. Reach out to others and inform them about a potential collaboration. For example, suggest they add something to your upcoming content piece and ask to share the post on their social media pages.

7 Steps to Optimize Social Media Content

Here, you will get the most effective steps for optimizing your social media content. Let's dig in!

1. Determine Your Social Media Goals

Start with determining your goals. Social media offers a plethora of opportunities. Trying to cover as much ground as possible with no clear objectives isn’t a sound strategy. If anything, it is a waste of resources chasing multiple ideas instead of settling for a single achievable objective.

The purpose of optimizing content on social media could be about:

Goals should also have specific values, such as getting 100 new followers in a week or redirecting 100 social media users to your blog post. Concrete numbers let you measure the progress and provide a sense of accomplishment when you reach a checkpoint.

2. Make Sure Your Profiles Are Entirely Filled Out

Social media content optimization doesn’t end with just the published pieces. Brands should strive to create a professional-looking profile and one that has the necessary details to appear in search results.

Here are a few key elements of a proper social media profile:

Filling out a profile on social media shouldn’t take too much time. And as soon as there is a need to update outdated information, you should do it as well.

3. Create a Realistic Publishing Schedule and Focus on Quality

Content optimization requires time and patience, particularly when there are not that many people working on content creation. Or, if one wishes to be on as many different platforms, it requires a lot of resources.

Early on, it is likely to get a wrong idea of whether or not it is realistic to establish a content publishing content cadence and stick to it.

Social media users who follow pages have certain expectations when it comes to content releases. 

Brands need to evaluate their resources and work on determining how much content they can create. 

If, for example, releasing one high-quality post per week for the foreseeable future is possible, it is better to stick to it. 

A fair few brands decide to go overboard with content and publish as much as possible early on, only to run out of ideas.

4. Test Different Calls to Action

If the content’s purpose is to drive conversions, CTAs play a prominent role. It is common to add calls to action in one of the profile sections, such as descriptions.

The content itself also benefits from a strong and encouraging call. Catchy headlines hook the consumer.

CTAs should also be specific rather than general and leave room for interpretation. If you want them to sign up for a newsletter or visit a blog post, make it clear.

Finally, if you plan to include a call to action, make it as short as possible. It should not be too much on the nose for users.

5. Include Relevant Hashtags and Keywords

Publishing a content piece without relevant hashtags and keywords is not a winning strategy. The followers will see the piece on their feed, but the goal should not be just about targeting current followers.

Hashtags and keywords affect internal social media search engines. If somebody searches for a specific content piece, they use relevant keywords and look through the results.

Including hashtags and keywords lets search algorithms detect your content. A few helpful tips to consider would be:

In case it is difficult to come up with hashtags to avoid general ideas, try one of the many available hashtag generators online.

6. Avoid Walls of Text and Prioritize Visuals Instead

Looking at how social media content evolved over the years, it is clear that visual pieces have taken over.

Walls of text might have worked in the past, but these days, an average person doesn’t have the necessary attention span to read long paragraphs. They get bored instantly and scroll on to the next thing. 

Right now, social media content revolves around visuals and audio. Your optimization strategy should include these two as well.

HubSpot projects that, on average, people watch 17 hours of video content per week. A dedicated video editor adds a lot of value to one’s social media strategy. 

In case the brand is small and cannot afford one yet, learning the craft is also an option. There are plenty of editing tools available both online and on desktop. 

Solving problems like incompatibility after picking a piece from another video is not too big of a deal, thanks to converters like the AVI to MP4 converter for Mac or MKV to WMV, for instance.

Besides videos, infographics, and other original graphics boost engagement. In fact, a study published by Venngage claims that infographics and illustrations perform the best, whereas stock photos show the worst results.

Virtually anything from memes and inspirational images to short animations and explainer videos has its place in social media content strategy. That’s not to say that text should be out; only that visual content is the name of the game right now.

7. Keep Up With the Trends and Make Adjustments When Necessary

The last bit of advice to consider is how social media is part of an ever-changing digital landscape.

Brands need to keep up with the trends and adjust accordingly. Otherwise, they risk becoming irrelevant or, at the very least, falling behind competition.

Take TikTok, for example. The platform launched in 2017 internationally, and it made a significant impact in the social media world.

Short videos became a staple on other sites. It’s common to see TikTok videos reposted on Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. 

Sure, TikTok has a younger audience compared to other popular social media platforms, which naturally changes the marketing approach. 

On the other hand, it would be a waste not to establish a presence on TikTok for an ambitious brand, given how popular the app is and how it continues to grow.

Conclusion

To sum everything up, social media content optimization requires constant effort. It is hard to keep the posting cadence running, particularly when quality is a concern. 

Nevertheless, so long as businesses are doing things right and prioritize content in their social media marketing efforts, the results are bound to come.