BBH Feature: Top Five New Year’s Resolutions for Social Media Success in 2016

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Welcome January, the time of year we take inventory, consider what’s ahead and plan new year’s resolutions to ensure we make this our best year yet.

At Roaring Pajamas, we believe your new year’s resolution planning should also encompass work goals; we compiled our top five priorities for social media to jump-start your marketing efforts in 2016.

1. Enhance Images

Research indicates that visual content significantly increases engagement on social media. In fact, adding a photo on Twitter boosts retweets 35% and earns an 85% interaction rate on Facebook.

Spending extra time on creating and curating great graphics pays dividends. Many on our team use Canva to easily create images that look professional but don’t break the bank.

Before embarking on a side career as a Canva designer, though, consider parameters around look, feel, tone and style; visuals must reflect your brand and enhance your content, not detract from either.

2. Utilize Video

While photos and graphics remain important, video is perhaps more significant for compelling social media. In late 2014, Mark Zuckerberg predicted Facebook will be mostly video in five years.

And, Cisco expects that by 2017 video will account for 69% of all consumer Internet traffic. Behind-the-scenes videos are a fantastic way to dip one’s social media toes in the video waters.

Such relatively easy videos work great posted on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. Alternatively, if one wishes to dive in, utilizing a video platform such as Snapchat or Vine will likely encourage more frequent video posts and extend your social media capabilities and reach.

3. Extend to a New Platform

Assuming mastery of existing platforms, resolve in the new year to explore and extend your marketing into a new social media platform.

• Instagram: With 400 million users, Instagram now surpasses Twitter in terms of users. An average of 70+ million photos are shared each day on Instagram, adoption of the platform reaches 85% among top brands and Instagram’s per-follower engagement rate for top brands is 58 times higher than on Facebook.And this is just the start of the positive statistics proving the value of Instagram. If not yet on Instagram, make it a new year’s resolution.

• Snapchat: Disappearing video apps tend to scare anyone over a certain age, but have quickly evolved to legitimate and useful platforms for business.With over 200 million users, 100 million daily active users, 400 million snaps per day and 6 billion daily video views, Snapchat is fast becoming a formidable social media force.The demographic sways younger, with most users between 18-34. Regardless, businesses are taking note and incorporating Snapchat into the marketing mix.

• Periscope: Once video is mastered, move to live steaming video – one of the new marketing trends taking the social media world by storm.With growth of over 10 million accounts in just four months since the acquisition by Twitter, Periscope leads the live streaming video category.Affordable, dynamic and useful in a variety of situations, consider Periscope to take your business social media new year’s resolutions to the next level. That said; spend plenty of time honing your live broadcast skills before launching this platform.

4. Engage More with Prospects

Social media offers businesses a unique opportunity to communicate with existing customers/ clients and prospective ones in a less invasive and friendlier way than ever before.

In addition to adhering to a social media strategy and staying faithful to an editorial calendar, use this opportunity to engage deeply with your audience.

A very worthwhile new year’s resolution is to spend a few extra minutes each day responding to comments – especially the negative ones – and interacting with your customers and prospects.

5. Hire a Professional

Since “everyone’s on social media” for personal reasons, it’s easy to think business social media can be done in house.

This facet of marketing, however, gets neglected if not made a priority in terms of time and resources. Given the opportunities to easily reach existing and new prospects, social media shouldn’t be left on the back burner.

If a company doesn’t have the time to properly commit to social media but recognizes the value, hiring a social media strategist becomes imperative. A good social media agency works in conjunction with the marketing team to present a consistent brand to all audiences across all social media platforms and ensures happier and more engaged customers and prospects.

What are your company’s plans for 2016 and, specifically, your new year’s resolutions for social media improvements?