As 2014 becomes a memory and 2015 a reality, at Sociality Squared we can’t think of a better time to reevaluate our daily work and ponder a few professional social media resolutions for the new year.
Resolution #1: Accept the Algorithm
We spent a good amount of time in 2014 talking about algorithms and how they affect the world around us from the news we read, to the latest from Aunt Josie, to what prices we pay when we travel. The 800 pound gorilla of the social algorithm world is Facebook’s Newsfeed and EdgeRank, the system Facebook uses to determine if your content is going to be surfaced in the Newsfeeds of the people who have Liked your pages. Facebook gave us all a warning that they would be making a large change in how content surfaces in the Newsfeed and that we should all expect to see organic reach drop in the coming year.
“I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been.” – Wayne Gretzky
What can we do about the change in the algorithm? Accept it. Facebook stated that it was looking to cut down in the number of posts that it shows from Pages that are clearly advertising or promotions. Adjust your content mix accordingly! Experiment with different post types to see what is getting traction both from the people who Like your page and also from organic reach. Accept that your promotional and advertising posts will need budget behind them in order to reach your community, but don’t mistake that for Facebook having a distinct lack of value.
Resolution #2: #Stop #Using #Excessive #Hashtags
We’ve all seen this person in our regular lives. The person who uses all hashtags under the sun on everything that they post. Research your hashtags in advance. If you have a campaign coming up, make sure that no one else is using the hashtag you’ve chosen. If you’re trying to attach your brand to an ongoing campaign, double check your hashtag usage to make sure you’ve got the right one. On Tumblr, the first ten hashtags are attributed to your post and anything after ten are not used in search.
Resolution #3: Don’t accidentally start a tweet with an @
This is a simple resolution, but extremely important and goes overlooked. When you start a tweet with an @, you are severely limiting your audience. Twitter, by default, only show that tweet to the people who are following you and the people who are following the person you mentioned, hiding it from everyone else’s Twitter feed. In light of this, re-write your tweet without the @ to start. Alternatively you could put a “.” to start off the tweet, but Sociality Squared suggests re-writing your tweet completely to re-phrase what you’re trying to say.
Three easy resolutions for 2015. What are your 2015 resolutions?
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