How to win on social media in 2020

© Will Francis via Unsplash.

In order to stand out and nail your 2020 social media goals you are going to need to do things slightly differently. Furthermore, it’s going to take a ton of hard work and perseverance, but it can be done and the results will astound you.

I believe that the easiest place for South Africa businesses to start winning is on Facebook. Aside from YouTube, Facebook is the largest social media platform on the planet! In fact, in South Africa alone, there are 16 million Facebook users, giving businesses and entrepreneurs alike the greatest reach in terms of its network, making it the best distribution channel for our content.

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Facebook has developed insanely easy-to-use platforms and analytics capabilities. This means that when leveraging Facebook right, you can really get close to which content works the best and drives the best results for your brand. So, where do you start?

If your business is truly committed to winning on social media this year, start by ensuring that you have a stand-out business page with hot content. It also takes some planning to get started so make sure that have post-its or your note pad close by in order to begin the process.

Here are five ways to set your Facebook page up for success:

1. Ask yourself these questions:

• What is it you want to achieve?
• Which of Facebook’s metrics do you want to use to measure success?
• What type of content are you going to post and how often?

2. Content is king

Remember there is user-generated content (that’s the stuff you write and design), shared content (that’s the stuff you share from other pages such as news sites) and there is live content – use a healthy mix of all of these to keep your audience engaged and entertained.

3. Plan, plan, plan

It’s time to write, design and schedule. If you’re into sharing other thought leader’s content, you need to decide what type of content is going to work for you. This saves you from getting share-happy and just posting random stuff to your page. The same applies to going live too much! Deep dive into your analytics and take a look at when your audience is online the most, then promote and plan your go-lives around these peaks.

4. Create a diverse strategy

Push strategies (pushing content to your audience) are great for getting your brand out there, pull strategies (giving away free stuff to create a pull effect) also works wonders! The real magic though is in the tango strategy because it takes two to tango. When you tango with your audience, you’re engaged in conversation and there simply isn’t anything more powerful than having a meaningful conversation with your audience.

5. Build a network

Create groups around key topics you’d like to discuss and invite people you think will benefit – make sure to outline some key rules of engagement for any page or group you create so that you can govern them effectively. This doesn’t mean kick anyone with a conflicting view out of the tribe – it’s healthy to get different perspectives – it means that you can protect the group from trolls. It’s key to know the difference.