AFJ Digital

I will start this blog off by saying social media reach is not what it used to be. I talked about this in a previous blog, noting that authentic content can help, but like many companies, you likely need more suggestions.

When I have this problem, I go through these best practices to increase social media reach and improve my content marketing strategy overall.

Map Your Content

When you’re working on building your content strategy, you’ll likely want to create a content map. Content mapping involves looking at every aspect of the buyer journey and determining how your content marketing efforts nurture your audience to reach your business goals. If you do this well, your content will be personalized for your target audience(s) and it will engage them along the buyer journey. If you want to learn more about content mapping and how to get started, I like these resources from Content Marketing Institute, ahrefs, Search Engine Land, MailChimp, and HubSpot.

This may seem like a lot of work to build your social media reach, but if you have a better understanding of your audience and what content they’re interested in, you have the best shot of increasing reach and improving your business long-term. Your audience will like and engage with your content, share it with their followers, and if their followers like it, your visibility grows over time.

Social media is meant to nurture your audience, even paid social, but it’s a vital part of your content marketing to build brand recognition.

Make it Relevant and Timely

I studied journalism in college and it helped me understand that the best news stories are timely and relevant. That concept prepared me well when I transitioned to marketing and worked in social media because like news stories, the best performing social posts tend to be ones that are timely and relevant.

When I create content, the first question I ask myself is how can I make my content timely and relevant. Here’s what I look for:

• News and Cultural Events (local or national)
• Social Media Trends
• Holidays
• Business or Industry Updates

When it comes to the first two points, please proceed with caution. You’ll want to gauge if the post topic is appropriate and relates to your business because it could completely backfire and damage your reputation. Those options also tend to age the fastest, so if you can safely strike while the moment is hot and it can relate back to your business, go for it.

If there’s something I want to share, but it isn’t the right time to share it, I look for the right opportunity (this is when a content calendar comes in handy) and I slot it for another date. I would say 25% of the time, I end up having to move a post and that’s ok. It’s worth changing things around if it makes sense.

Pin It

Most social media platforms allow you to do pinned posts, which are featured at the top of your post feed on the profile page of your business. Pinned posts serve a purpose, and I think they are worth doing if the piece of content is current and filled with helpful information. Here are some of the occasions where it would be especially beneficial:

• A major, upcoming event
• An important company update
• A viral post (if it’s recent)

The important aspect of pinning is not overdoing it. I rarely pin a post and save it for the most opportune occasions because I want to encourage engagement that leads people to a company’s CTA or website. So save the best content for the most reach.

Diversify Outreach

I will admit I only use LinkedIn for my business, but that doesn’t mean I only post about my business there. I share posts outside of the network on other platforms like Facebook and Instagram when it makes sense. It allows people outside LinkedIn to learn about my business, but I have gained followers on LinkedIn because I’ve shared about it on other platforms. And when you add followers, you can increase how many people you reach over time because these people are my target audience and the most engaged followers.

Reach will always change on all of these platforms, but your audience is always out there on more than just one of them.

Be Yourself

As I mentioned at the beginning of this blog, I wrote another blog about building authenticity in marketing and if there’s a space that “should” be it’s most authentic self, it’s social media.

I know that sounds absurd, especially when most people use it to show how great their life is, but people are tired of perfection. They want something real and are getting better and better at spotting inauthenticity, so embrace it! Instead of making everything look branded, save the branded content only when necessary. Aim to go outside the box with what you post as long as it’s relevant to your organization and try raw photos, footage, or commentary about your business and your employees. Fun and relatable content always gets more attention.

Tag Accounts and People

A great way to get more social media accounts to engage with you is by engaging with them directly. For years, I have done this by tagging individual companies and people and today, it’s a standard practice across many social media platforms.

Imagine you’re a person tagged in an Instagram story from a friend. You’ll likely share it and when you share it, more people see that person’s story, increasing the post’s visibility. If it’s on a platform like LinkedIn or Facebook and you get tagged in a post and you like it, that post will show up on a connection or friend’s feed, increasing the initial post’s reach.

If you aren’t careful, too much tagging can come off as spammy, but it depends on the platform and who’s tagged. When in doubt, use your best judgment.

Invest in Paid Social Media

As organic reach continues to decline, investment in paid social posts continues to go up. In 2023, nearly a third of digital ad spend was on social media ads and reached a total of $211 billion, which is more than double the amount spent in 2019.

With organic reach ~4-8% on Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn, it’s no wonder companies are investing in social media ads to boost their visibility. Digital ads are not cheap, but social media ads can be as cheap as they need to be and they’re a great start to experimenting with ads.

If this is a route you want to go to increase content reach, I recommend looking at what content on your page does well, aim to A/B test your ads, and know what types of metrics you want to measure to make your ads effective. And if they aren’t working, stop the ads immediately and reevaluate your approach.

Make it Fun

I used to think a lot of business social media pages couldn’t be fun, but it isn’t true. Sometimes, it really is the little things that make the difference, like sharing a post about a beloved office plant that’s in bloom, reaching a fundraising goal for charity, or employees sharing their favorite holiday recipes. People want to see the human side of your business, so embrace it.

You may not use all of these suggestions at once and I recommend not doing that to test how well each one works for you. Some may work better than others depending on the type of business, but these changes all have the components of improving social media reach.