14 Social Media Marketing Best Practices To Boost Your Brand

It’s easy to get lost in the fun of making social media content for your brand. But at some point, you have to stop and ask yourself, are you even doing it right? Are your Instagram marketing efforts actually translating into follower growth, good relationships with your fans, adequate sales, and conversions? If not, it might be time to incorporate more social media marketing best practices into your content strategy.

It can be overwhelming looking for ways to boost your social media presence. But we’ve got you. In this guide, we’re giving you a rundown of the 14 best practices to incorporate into your social media strategy. Implement as many of them as possible, and you’ll be well on your way to social media success. Let’s jump right in, shall we?

1. Define Your Key Target Audience

If you want to succeed on social media platforms, the first thing you need clarity on is your target audience. That way, you can focus on communicating with a certain group of people instead of trying to please everyone.

With a deep understanding of the people you’re trying to speak to, creating content becomes easier and more pointed. So, pinpoint your key target market. Define their demographics, like their age and gender, as well as their psychographics, like hobbies and lifestyle. From there, it’s easier to create content you know will resonate with them and their wants and needs.

Tailor your social media posts to your specific audience’s preferences. Give them valuable, entertaining, and interesting content that they’ll love seeing. Make sure your tone and visual style are something they’ll love. And if you nail your content strategy to fit your target audience, you’ll see stellar engagement rates on your posts.

2. Specialize in a Niche Within Your Industry

Want to stand out in fiercely competitive social platforms like Instagram? Niching down on an expertise or topic is one of the best practices for social media marketing to do that.

Niche marketing refers to finding a specialization within a bigger category your brand operates in. Find a specific topic related to your industry that you’re passionate and knowledgeable about. Then, focus all your social media efforts on that topic. This is a great Instagram marketing strategy for finding an edge for your brand and making it more attractive to others.

Let’s say you’re an influencer in the fashion space and are having a hard time standing out. Instead of simply following fashion trends that everyone else is posting about, focus on a specific niche, like maximalism. Post bold outfits, style guides for mismatched clothes, mixing surprising colors together, and more. Turn yourself into the go-to account for all things maximalist and become an Instagram fashion icon in your own right.

Choosing a niche doesn’t just give you a distinct, easily recognizable brand. It also makes creating content much easier on your end. Instead of overwhelming yourself with so many ideas under a big category, streamline your content and focus on your niche. 

3. Optimize Your Username and Bio

Want more people to discover your Instagram page? Make sure you come up on search to drive more traffic to your page. You can do that by optimizing your username and bio to make it easy for your audience to find you.

You can be as creative as you want on your feed. But your username has to be as simple as possible. When your target audience searches for your brand name on Instagram, your account needs to be the first result. Don’t add unnecessary characters or numbers to your handle. Keep it plain and simple so that it’s easily recognizable.

Optimizing your Instagram bio, on the other hand, is another story. Use this section of your page to include as many important buzzwords and trendy hashtags as you want. The goal is to appear on the results page when people search for these phrases.

Here’s an example. If you’re a vegan beauty brand, you might want to include words like “ethical,” “vegan,” or “sustainable” in your bio. That way, if anyone interested in your niche looks up those words on Instagram, your brand pops up.

4. Create Mobile-Friendly Social Content

According to Statista, over 96% of the world’s social media users access the internet through their mobile phones. Meanwhile, only 62% access it from their desktop devices.

This tells brands that on social networks, content has to be optimized for mobile devices. Gone are the days of primarily landscape photos and videos. Today, it’s all about vertical media that fills up the screen and makes the most out of mobile real estate.

Mobile-optimized content is easier to digest, making people more likely to watch, like, comment, and engage with it. It’s also more visually appealing, which social media users will definitely appreciate.

Instead of posting horizontal content, try to go for square photos or vertical videos, like Instagram Reels. Ensure that your images are always in the highest resolution so they look sharp on mobile. As for captions, keep them short and sweet to make them easier to read, even on a phone screen.

5. Plan Social Posts in Advance With a Content Calendar

To succeed on social media, it’s important to post content consistently. When you don’t make an effort to post anything on your channels for long periods, people might assume you’re inactive. This can lead to them unfollowing your page. And when you post again, you might not see great traction since your engagement was already low from the silence.

Stay on track with your social media activities and posting schedules by using a content calendar. This awesome Instagram management tool can help you organize your upcoming posts and see them at a glance. It’s basically your roadmap and schedule for when and what to publish on your page. That way, you can stay on top of posting consistently without any lulls.

Here are just some of the things your calendar should contain:

• Dates and times for posting
• Types of content you want to post per day
• Content pillars per post so you can see your overall content distribution
• Captions and hashtags each post will contain

Anyone can benefit from a well-thought-out content calendar, from influencers to social media managers. It helps you plan content in advance and reduces the stress of coming up with posts at the last minute. If you want to make sure you’re posting consistently throughout the week or month, it’s a must for your brand.

6. Diversify Your Posts by Experimenting With Different Creative Formats

If you post the same exact kind of content every time, it’s easy to bore your audience. Don’t stick to just single-image posts or one Instagram Story a day. Get out of your comfort zone and experiment with different creative formats to see which ones your target audience likes.

Keep your content fresh by always mixing it up. If you posted a photo or carousel post yesterday, publish a trendy Reel today. Be as versatile as you can with your content so that you can capture the attention of different audiences.

Think of it this way. All social media users have unique habits when scrolling through their favorite apps. Take Instagram, for example. A lot of people spend most of their time on the platform watching Reels. However, a handful will still stick to scrolling on the main feed. By posting feed posts and Reels, both segments of users can stumble upon your content.

Plus, posting different types of content is also a chance to show people how creative you can be. You’re not just a one-trick pony; you can make exciting, engaging content no matter what format is trending. Prove it by playing around with multiple creative formats to dazzle your audience.

7. Leverage Trends and Challenges Your Target Audience Might Like

One way to reach more people on social media is by participating in popular trends and challenges. Leverage these viral social media moments—from dance challenges to art trends—to drive traffic to your page. By being present in these trends, you can expect to find more likes, comments, and shares on your content.

Joining in on fun trends shows your audience that your brand is relevant and can keep up with the times. It lets you become more active in the fun side of the online community, at least for a little bit. Plus, it allows you to diversify your brand’s content so it isn’t just all product-centric or business-related posts. It’s an awesome way to show off your personality!

If you do join these viral trends and challenges, make sure to use the appropriate hashtags and stickers for them. Tag other people you’d like to challenge to take on the trend as well. These can help drive even more visibility and engagement for your content.

8. Engage With Your Audience

No brand succeeds online without forming rapport and a good relationship with its fanbase. That’s why authentically and personally engaging with your audience is one of the best practices of social media marketing.

Engaging with people online helps make them feel valued. It tells them that you’re not just using them for clout—you actually care about their wants and needs. Create a genuine connection with other social media users by sparking conversation and responding when they engage with you first.

Here are just a few ways you can engage with your audience:

• Reply to comments and direct messages.
• Host a Q&A session on Stories or Instagram Live to answer people’s most pressing questions about you in real time.
• Like posts your fans tag you in.

All of these help enhance people’s trust in you. They show others that you’re approachable and a credible, “friendly” brand. In the long run, this can lead to more followers and even conversions for your brand.

9. Collaborate With Popular Influencers To Promote Your Brand

Borrow other creators’ influence on social media and have them put the spotlight on your brand through a collaboration. Partner with influencers your target audience admires and get them to promote your products.

Influencer marketing is huge on social media today because users trust people more than they do businesses. Collabs and sponsorships are seen as more authentic and native than polished, overly manicured ads. So, it’s a much more effective way to make noise about your brand online.

There are many ways to work with influencers on social media. You can hire them to “star” in your next campaign or even produce a brand-new product line with your brand. Then, you can ask them to promote the content on their channels.

For something simpler, they can also do a quick sponsored post featuring your brand. What’s awesome about this route is that these creators can produce the content for you. It’s less work for your brand while you reap the benefits of reaching new audiences.

The key is to choose influencers you know have influence over your target market. Choose a popular creator whose lifestyle fits well with your niche.

You should also look at that influencer’s following to see if it can help you meet your social media goals. If your objective is to reach as many people as possible, look for creators with thousands or millions of followers. To drive conversions within a niche audience, work for smaller creators with out-of-this-world engagement rates.

For product campaigns, don’t forget to give your partner influencers affiliate marketing links to your brand website! This helps you track down which of your ambassadors are gaining the most traction for your campaign. It also gives your fave collaborators a nice treat (aka a commission for every conversion they drive).

10. Localize Your Marketing Efforts To Reach People in a Specific Area

Do you own a small business and are trying to make it big in your local community? If so, you will benefit greatly from hyperlocal social media marketing. This means localizing your online efforts to reach people in a specific city or country.

There are many ways to grab the attention of the people living in your area. You can publish content about local events where they can check out your brand. Then, include a location tag or city hashtag to ensure it’s on the radar of everyone who lives nearby. Another trick of social media marketing for a small business is to collaborate with influencers in your area to help you reach local fans.

11. Encourage and Repost User-Generated Content

User-generated content (UGC) refers to social posts featuring your brand spontaneously made by real fans and customers, not paid influencers. These include product reviews, unboxing Reels, photos and videos of them using your brand’s products, and more. It’s authentic content made by genuine customers, not celebs you’re sponsoring.

UGC marketing has become huge in recent years because of how genuine it is. It shows potential fans and customers how real people use your products and whether they’re worth the money. It’s a native way of letting others speak for your business. If they paint your business in a positive light, it may convince more users to patronize your brand.

So, it’s a great idea to encourage your followers to post user-generated content featuring your brand. You can do this by offering cool incentives, like discount vouchers or access to exclusive sales for every UGC post. Don’t forget to repost their UGC to your page to make sure more people see it!

12. Use Analytics Reports to Tweak and Improve Your Content Strategy

Analytics reports are some of the best and most powerful social media marketing tools out there. They share information about your content and how it’s performing. They tell you how engaging your posts are, how many people they reached, and whether they drove conversions.

With these valuable insights and metrics, you can glean intel on which types of content perform the best. From there, you can tweak your creative content strategy to improve it and make it more appealing to your audience. In a nutshell, they can help you make data-driven decisions for your business’s social media presence to make it better.

If you have a professional account on Instagram, you can check your page and post-level analytics on the Insights dashboard. If not, enlist the help of popular social media tools to help you measure your analytics. We promise it’s going to be more than worth it!

13. Invest in Paid Ads To Reach a Wider Audience

If you have a professional account and a significant marketing budget, consider running paid ads on Instagram. Ad campaigns are the gold standard for accurately reaching your target audience on the platform. With just a few dollars per day, you can push out ads to your niche audience and boost your visibility.

What’s awesome about Instagram ads is that you can customize them however you want. You set your own budget and define your key audience. You can even choose your social media ad objective, whether it’s reach, engagement, sales, website visits, and more. Then, the algorithm does the work for you and promotes your ad to the right people every time.

14. Cross-Promote Content on Your Brand’s Other Social Channels

Most brands have a social media presence on more than just one platform. To leverage these many channels, cross-promote your posts across your network.

Let’s say you have plenty of Facebook fans but want more Instagram followers. One way to leverage your Facebook presence would be to share your Instagram posts on your Facebook page. That way, more people will see it. Those who don’t already follow you on Instagram might discover your IG page for the first time that way.

And cross-promoting isn’t limited to reposting content on different social media channels. You can also promote your social pages through email newsletters, blogs, your LinkedIn page, and much more. Wherever you have an online presence is a terrific avenue for promoting your other channels.

Use These Top Social Media Marketing Best Practices To Get More Followers

Remember—social media fame doesn’t happen overnight. You have to work hard to get yourself on the map! Incorporate these best practices into your Instagram strategy little by little and stay consistent to see the best results. Before you know it, you’ll attract followers, skyrocket your engagement rates, and meet your sales targets and social media goals!

These social media marketing best practices are perfect for growth, but you can also get extra help from Path Social. To complement your efforts to boost your online presence, we can help promote your page to the right people. Tell us your target audience, and we’ll make sure they see your social media content. In no time, you’ll see tons of new followers flocking to your page. Grow your Instagram community today with Path Social’s tried-and-tested strategies!