We’ve been talking a lot about social media in the recent past: creating fan pages, using tweets, pinning interesting and relevant images, and joining as many Google circles as possible.

But when you look around and see thousands of people doing just that, it makes you wonder how many are actually successful.  How many people have a huge fan following on Facebook? How many tweets are being retweeted?

What would a marketer do to find the exact formula that works on these social media sites, a formula we can follow and receive the blessings of the Social Gods!

Alas, there’s no such formula for general social media posting.

There cannot be a single formula as social networks are as different from one another, as chalk and cheese.  The tastes and preferences of the people frequenting the networks are different, the way fans interact with each other is different and their expectations are different.

The only way to succeed with social media posting is to understand these differences and deliver based on the expectations of each.

You pay attention very closely to what your community wants to do. What platforms do they like? What networks do they avoid? What do they just not get? What kind of tools do they want to use? ~ Fouts via Janetfouts.com

Facebook 

Facebook users are different than the normal website visitors as physical customers, in that they react to specials/offers very differently. However, if done right, special information or deals can make your Facebook page flourish. ~ Greg Finn via searchengineland.com

Being frequented by a large number of youngsters; information, images, free offers and continuous engagement are some of the important things that attract Facebook users.

Useful information: They look for information and the best way to attract people on Facebook is to provide valuable information, while not giving them every single detail, which will prompt them to click on your link to find out the rest.

Images:  Posts that are accompanied by images do well.

Link to your site: Provide a link back to your site. But how will you know how many people from Facebook are clicking on your link? Use Bit.ly to find out.

Mobile compatibility: A majority of users access Facebook from their mobiles. So make sure whatever you post is mobile friendly, without complicated images or anything that doesn’t display properly on mobiles.

Engagement: Users view your interest based on the frequency of your posts and responses. You should be seen as someone who is interested in them and willing to take out time to interact with them.

Twitter 

Some recent numbers from an advertising and analytics start up Optimal show that when tracking the numbers from 4,330 brands, that Twitter followers grew at a 55% faster rate than Facebook likes. ~ Jeff Bullas via jeffbullas.com

Twitter users are different and with the low tweet character count, they are used to receiving short messages that reveal everything they want to know.

Call to action:  Twitter users need great call to actions.  Make sure your tweets tell people what they should do.

Proper English:  They also want to see good English and grammar. There are no excuses to use all caps or abbreviations.

Links:  The best way of getting more retweets is to use Bit.ly to shorten the URLs. This has been seen to result in more retweets.

Questions, facts and figures:  Since you’re communicating with very few words, plain text may not be as effective as asking questions, giving some facts and figures.

Google+ 

Don’t think of Google+ as just another social profile.  Think about it as your first contact point with a new client.  ~ Cindy King via socialmediaexaminer.com

A perfect Google+ post would be something that talks about a current hot trend, and that contains the following factors.

Hot trends:  Keeping on top of the latest trends and informing people about it, is the best way of attracting Google Plus users.  Real-time events will increase the visibility of your brand.

Tagging: Tagging people and businesses can help a great deal, because tagging sends them a notification. This can result in those people engaging in a communication with you, leading to improved relationships.

Big images:  Again, images have an impact that simple text cannot. It has been seen that full-size images seem to do better on Google+ when compared to thumbnails.

Interaction:  It’s the same with any social network, but with Facebook and Twitter, people are most willing to converse, but Google+ users are a little more conservative. So engaging them in conversations requires a great deal of interaction.

Communities:  Google+ is all about communities. Find them in your niche and engage in discussions with them.

Pinterest 

The useful life of the average tweet can be measured in minutes. Most posts on Facebook exist in users’ streams for perhaps a few hours. But a pin on Pinterest? That can last thousands of times longer, according to a new study by Piqors (formerly Pinfluencer). ~ John Koetsier via venturebeat.com

Pinterest users have their own likes and dislikes and they are mostly women with lots of money to spend.  They also spend a lot of time on this flourishing social media site.

No faces in images:  While Pinterest is an image-based site; photos of people don’t do well on this site.

Image colors: It has been seen that images with loud colors like red, orange, pink and green get more pins and likes than those with dull colors.  They should be bright and attractive, not sober and seductive.

Vertical images:  Vertical images liked more than the horizontal ones.

You’ve created a perfect social media post based on the requirements of the social media networking sites. How nice it would be to know when these sites are most active and buzzing with activity and when they’re isolated.

Social Media Posting: When Do You Post?

Social media is 24/7. Someone is always tweeting, posting on Facebook, or uploading a new picture to instagram. However, for social media managers and businesses alike, this can be quite of a challenge. We obviously can’t be online all day, even for those of us who are social media managers or strategist. But how do you know when to best reach your audience? ~ Brianna Smith via socialmediatoday.com

Since the idea is to get noticed, it helps to do your social media posting when you can get the maximum exposure, which is when there are the maximum number of people on the sites. Since the demographic profiles of users are different in these social networking sites, their visits are timed different too.

As you can see above, it makes a world of difference to know when the exposure to your business is at the greatest.  The peak hours for each network are different.  Pinterest is where you should be doing your marketing if you’re nocturnal.

Now You Know Social Media Posting….. 

Now you know what factors need to be taken into consideration when posting a perfect social media post, with the potential to attracts huge numbers of “real” people you’ve discussed with or entered into a comfort zone with.

Do you do it this way too with your social media posting?