We’re spending so much of our free time behind a screen, which has led to a huge rise in digital marketing. Our industry needs to evolve towards this form of communication – and fast. Harriet Whitaker has the story…

SINCE working in this sector, I’ve realised the importance of the development of social media platforms and the power behind them. As a magazine, CFJ ensures it posts out industry news, articles, event information and current trends across all its platforms including Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and a private group on LinkedIn. Without regular posting, CFJ wouldn’t be able to reach as many members of the industry which could highly impact engagement.

If you’re a newbie to new technology and social media, here’s a few straightforward tips to help you.

Get hashtagging
The audience you’re trying to connect with often uses hashtags which are searched by other members of your audience in social media search engines. If you use the same hashtags, they’re more likely to click on your posts. Find out what the most popular hashtags are in your industry and use them in your own posts to increase engagement.

Tagging
Ensure you tag the companies or specific people you want to see your posts. This increases your chances of your posts being shared and seen by more people, which can generate leads.

Emojis and gifs
Social media is an informative way to break news and inform followers. Adding emojis and gifs can take away the seriousness of a post which makes it fun and can encourage followers to interact and comment. At the end of the day, we’re only people having a conversation.

Add an image
Images are much more interesting than just copy. Copy needs to be really powerful to stand up on its own in a social media post, therefore adding an image can help ensure your posts don’t get lost in the millions of others in a newsfeed. It can also illustrate to the audience the context of your post. For example, if you’re selling a new product, you may want to include an image of it so they can see what you’re talking about.

Links
Ever wanted to get more traffic to a website? Why not post a call to action link to it on social media? They’re your target audiences you want potential business off so it would be silly not to slip it in at the end of a post to allow them to find out more.

Videos stand out from the crowd
A statistic shows that a video performs best with algorithms that will boost content to a wider audience. This is why Instagram generates more engagement than any other content type. Tweets with video content reportedly creates up to 10 times more engagement than a generic tweet. Social media users are visual learners so they’re more likely to share a video than an image.

Posting on Forums or Groups related to the industry
There’s so many flooring groups you can join where you can post as long as you abide by the rules of the group and don’t spam them. As a company, CFJ only posts events and surveys as these are purely to target these groups and benefit them.

The timing of posting can play a major effect on how many engagements you get on your social media posts. For example if you post at midnight, you may get less engagement than you would at 9am in the morning. When you have posted, you can monitor them where you will be able to see how many people you have reached and how many engagements your post has had. You can do this on all social media platforms.

From measuring these assets over time, you will be able to distinguish when the best time of day to reach your audience. You can also use the analytical tools which can demonstrate the busiest times of the day where majority of your followers are online. This can also increase interaction with your posts.

Analytical tools
Following on from my previous point, each social media platform has its own analytical tab where you can see a summary of what your page has achieved over a certain amount of time. These vary from platform to platform. Using these tools can help you determine how to interact your audiences for future posts.

Variations of posts
Keep posts different from one another. Mix things up a bit. You don’t want the same content being posted all the time. Doing this may cause you to lose followers and engagement.

Stay active
Create at least one post a day across all your social media platforms. This keeps your followers updated and lets them know you’re active. Plan your posts. Setting up a social media plan can help increase engagement daily.
harriet.whitaker@kick-startpublishing.co.uk