The world of technology has experienced a paradigm shift, and businesses are aligning themselves with the changing trends. As everyone knows, social media has had a big hand in this transition. It has gained wide attention among businessperson and company owners alike. And it’s the best way to attract customers to your business.

While success in social media is the dream for every startup, there are still many companies who are struggling to create an online digital presence. And if this sounds like your startup, you need to change things as soon as possible. Follow these tips to social media marketing and you’ll be on your way to more engagement than you can handle.

Do it Timely

It seems absurd to care about the timing of posting on various social media platforms. However, it’s been proven that the timing of your social media post matters a lot when it comes to customer engagement. Businesses owners have to look up their target geography and what is the best time to catch maximum attention.

The smart tip will be to post your content just before or just after the hour, for instance, at times like 1:57, 2:04, 9:56, etc. The reason is that you want to catch hold of eyeballs when people are really exposing their attention to be grasped. These are the times when office employees are awaiting the clocking of their lunch hour, daily office calls, and meetings, which means there eyes will be off work and on social media.

Know What’s Hot, and Forget What’s Not

Facebook is by far the most dynamic and quickly changing social media network, and that’s obvious in how frequently changes are made to the general guidelines for promotional use of the your profiles. So, make it a point that you know all about the latest guidelines, so that you can use the platform to the best effect your audience without transgressing any guidelines.

For example, Facebook now allows 3rd party applications to be used for handling Facebook page promotions. Also, you can’t ask users to share your page to enter a promotional event. In addition, the Like button can be used as a voting mechanism, as per latest guidelines. So, it’s clear how the changing guidelines can make or break your social marketing campaigns.

Adopt Change as a Marketing Strategy

It’s surprising how short the life-cycles of technologies and related digital habits are. 5 years back, nobody imagines that smartphones would overshadow desktop browsing, and 3 years back nobody imagined that tablets would be the new laptops. Simon Parker, who is a social media campaign expert at Cartridge Ink, believes that these technology shifts have a direct impact on social media campaign designs.

For instance, considering that more than 50% Facebook users browse their walls through their smartphones, it makes more sense for businesses to make their social posts mobile friendly.

Social Marketing vs. Social Advertising

Imagine a friend who visits you twice a week, only to shamelessly try to sell you his new unused watch he picked up from the duty free shop. Chances are, that the ‘friend’ will fall out of your good books sooner than they’d want to. In the same manner, businesses ought to realize that when they create social media pages, they can’t blatantly sell their products and services. After all, it’s a society that’s connected digitally, and it’s not cool to sell-sell-sell all the time.

So, think on the lines of long term and emotionally connecting social media campaigns, wherein you can throw in the odd sales pitch every now and then.

Social Marketing Can Make Or Break Your Business

So, you thought social marketing was all about low cost sales pitch broadcasting? Well, here’s a reality check – you will be ruthlessly put out of business if a user shares negative news about your brand. Several food businesses learned their lessons the hard way. So, ensure that you have a team of social media and public relations wizards monitoring all your social pages for any ‘bad word’ and addressing customer complaints intelligently, so showcase your responsiveness as a brand.

The gist of the story – social marketing is serious stuff, so invest time, efforts, and money, to get results.

Article written by Leona Zoey of Tech.co. Follow her on Twitter @leonazoey