The benefits of social media marketing can no longer be ignored. Make sure you’re getting it right.

The debate as to if Social media marketing is worth the effort has become obsolete in the last five years as life has literally moved to the social media. Even conventional news media has begun struggling with the “Menace of social media news” where people seem to get the majority of their information irrespective of if it is verifiable at all.

While a lot of businesses have a level of social media presence and involvements, not very many are maximizing it. The social media is perhaps the fastest converting means of marketing that you can have. These tips will help you take advantage;

1.- Time Your Posts Right

It’s a simple principle people seem to be missing. Call me around 2:00 p.m. and I will probably pick it up, try around 11:00 p.m. and I will be asleep. It really doesn’t matter how great the message you bear or how urgent.

It doesn’t matter how great your ads are or how great the benefits are for your potential customers, timing is everything or the campaign is a failure already. TruConversion, a company that helps you optimize your customer experience, is developing an app to help businesses optimize and track their social media results.

For the most part, you will just have to post at random times over a period of time and observe what times people seem to engage with your post more often or you can follow the trends discovered by various studies. Some trends are general, for instance, women tend to stay online on Instagram till late at night, a product for young women will find that 11:00 p.m. is an ideal time.

There have even been studies that show how the different sexes tend to use social media, depending on what kind of business you offer. A few studies have equally shown that Facebook has greater engagement on weekends between 12:00 p.m. and 2:00 a.m. Either way, do not base your campaign on a random system.

2.- Choose Your Platform Right

Every social media platform favors certain kind of businesses more, this fact is trite. If for instance, you run a photo editing and photography business or any business that can be sold with quality pictures, then it goes without saying that Instagram is worth a million bucks in its benefits to your business.

Facebook on the other hand also has an open platform for all kinds of businesses, but it gives more room for text, Facebook Pages are beginning to show equal engagement as websites and more engagement in many cases. Basically, it gives you room to explain yourself better and with the addition of Live streaming, Facebook has stepped up in its importance for literally every business type.

Twitter limits you to 140 characters. It can be quite difficult creating something meaningful in that small space, but it can create a huge and relevant audience quickly. But without the ability to target a group of people, it sometimes feels like you are throwing a message out to a big silent world. Twitter is great at making initial connections which can lead to reliable reach on another platform like a blog or podcast.

Though limited, you can still use twitter to promote your business. It works well for bloggers and online entrepreneurs. Platforms like Periscope will be great for live video advertising if you think that works for your kind of business and Reddit will do great for contacting your customers personally and hearing from them.

3.- Get Their Mails… It’s Vital!

No, e-mails are not old school. According to a survey by Exact Target (Now a part of Salesforce) 91 percent of consumers reported that they checked their email every day. Emails are still the preferred channel for customers and until this changes, you should pay attention to it.

Yes, I know e-mail isn’t social media, but you can utilize your social media page to offer incentives for customers to join an e-mailing list. You can, for instance, provide a sign-up form on your website or on Facebook.

When you have their emails, then you can almost certainly count on being able to reach them when you need to as opposed to trying to guess when they will be available.

4.- Amplify Your Most Vocal Supporters

People generally trust peer recommendations over branded messaging. This may seem a problem to most people engaged in social media marketing, but it also presents an opportunity. Get advocates from your most vocal supporters and amplify their positivity through your social media handles.

This way people can get in direct contact with them as well, and get proof that you offer exactly what you put up. If you can get the support of a community that trust your brand, and figure out how to get other people to tell your story, there’s a lot more credibility than telling it yourself

5.- Be Unique

Customers face a deluge of marketing messages every day, so you need a fresh tone and consistently innovative content. Customers need to “feel good”. The best content creates a powerful experience for the consumer, whether it’s a captivating video, a fun quiz, or personalized content. Customers will not forget how you made them feel.

There, you have all you need, go engage your mind!

Article Written by Toby Nwazor of The Good Men Project