Social media marketing today has changed a lot. With the recent GDPR updates and the Facebook scandal, how social media marketers have to market on social media, digital marketing has changed dramatically.
Table of Contents
Learn How And Why You do Social Media Marketing Organically
1. Facebook
This one has changed the most with Facebook pages for businesses. How ads are now targeted has changed. Facebook will no longer be able to process news feed posts for ad-targeting purposes unless those posts are marked “public” or “friends of friends” because they usually include what the GDPR defines as “special categories of data,” according to sources. Facebook needs to get consent from users to target them.
On the day the new EU laws came into effect, Facebook, What’s App, Instagram, and Google all got hit with lawsuits within hours of it being law. Facebook and Google were sued for billions of dollars!
What to Focus on Now with Facebook
To have your content be seen more on the Facebook stream, you must provide meaningful content that will have reactions and shares. Likes are no longer a measurement of your posts for them to be seen in the stream. It’s all about reactions, comments, and shares.
The more your Facebook page followers engage with your content, the more you will continue to appear in their feeds and the feeds of their friends.
Furthermore, Facebook pages that keep conversations going among friends will see less of a negative effect. Followers can also proactively choose to see page content first through the “See First” option instead of “Default” in your page’s “Following” drop-down menu. Facebook Pages can point this tidbit out to their fans to increase their chances of showing up in their Facebook feeds going forward.
2. Twitter
On the other hand, Twitter has introduced granular controls that let people opt out of targeted advertising. Twitter has modified the way conversations happen based on the behavior and conduct of users versus the actual content of their tweets. The site will now use thousands of signals when filtering searches, replies, and algorithmic recommendations, pushing tweets from offending users farther down the timeline.
Twitter Recent Changes
Twitter recently has changed a lot and many of the tools marketers had to increase their tweet reach have vanished away like Just Retweet to name one.
Other users have gotten stuck in Twitter jail or suspended altogether when having more than one Twitter account.
It was a practice that was used for a long time. Businesses would have their business account and a personal account. They would share some of the same content from both accounts. This became a big NO-NO for the Twitterverse and many had to eliminate one or be extra careful not to tweet the same things from both accounts.
It’s also become harder to use tools to get more followers, tweets, and shares from others. Sites like Social Quant disappeared within the past month.
How to Tweet Better Today
Today Buffer is still a great tool for sharing others’ content by setting up feeds in your Buffer app. This helps to share other’s content regularly and thus they will most likely share your content too. Not only can you use the Buffer with Twitter but you can use it with Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Google+.
The best part of using Buffer is that you can schedule all your tweets. Then when you add them to the buffer app they are ready to go at your preset time. You can at any time cancel all of them if so big event happens that you don’t want tweets going out. (Like 9/11, etc.)
Other tools still available today are Triberr and ViralContentBee. Triberr is used for bloggers to share their feeds so that others can share their content. You join tribes with like content and share theirs. It takes time to build a following there but once you do it works like a charm.
GuestCrew is a tool that is used for Twitter and Facebook. It has the same theory: You share others content that is relevant to your following and they share your content.
Both above tools have free and paid versions you can choose from and work great with Twitter.
Twitter is still the easiest way to connect with others online. You don’t have to know them first as you most likely do with the other social networks. It’s a great networking place for small businesses. It’s quick and easy but does take time to generate leads and sales.
3. Instagram
The fastest-growing social network by younger users has changed too with many new ways of expanding their Instagram reach.
The platform has also significantly reduced the rate at which developers can pull information from the API, making it more difficult to access user data. Blame it on Cambridge Analytics if you want!
Third-party tools will have their work cut out for them too with this change. But again, if it’s protecting user data, it’s all good news in the long run.
Users will soon be able to use these new features to download content that they have uploaded onto the platform, including pictures, videos, and possibly even messages that they have exchanged with others on Instagram.
This is happening mostly to stay compliant with the GDPR privacy law that’s affected Facebook. This new requires data portability, which allows users to download their content and potentially leave them to upload it to a competitive website.
Historically, Instagram has had poor data portability, both for users and business profiles alike. You can’t drag tap and hold images to save them from Instagram. And you can’t even download images you have already posted yourself.
How to Use Instagram Organically
Instagram is like Facebook since it is owned by them. You must also comment and engage with users to remain high in their Instagram feed. You can choose stories and videos to change up your media posting and gain more followers.
Most often (at least once daily) and use at least 10-12 hashtags per post. You can even use up to 30 hashtags on Instagram. Some people recommend you use all 30 hashtags on Instagram. This is very different than any of the other social media networks.
The one thing with Instagram is that people will follow and unfollow you quicker than you change your underwear! Don’t take it personally. Just keep on growing your profile or page there organically.
4. LinkedIn
This professional social network has changed the look and ways in which you can promote your brand better now. LinkedIn’s systems track and analyze social actions such as writing a post or article, liking content, or commenting on another member’s posts or articles. This data is used by their algorithms to provide content relevant to you in your LinkedIn feed.
You may see recommended content with labels such as Trending, Recommended for You, or Popular. Your social actions will also influence the ads you see. You can customize your feed to manage what contents appear in your feed. By following new people and companies can also improve your feed.
Finally, you can also add keywords to your profile, to be found easier by companies and others you want to do business with.
LinkedIn Tips Today
Having the right keywords in your profile greatly magnifies the effectiveness of other actions you can take to boost your visibility. These actions include joining the right groups on LinkedIn, building your network strategically, displaying the organizations where you worked, and maintaining an active presence through updates.
Another tactic today is to be sure your profile is 100% filled out on LinkedIn. When you go to edit your profile, there is a counter to see if it’s 50% 90%, or 1005 filled out. LinkedIn guides you on where you need to work on your profile. Do fill it all out!
5. Organically Posting and Engaging is Key Today!
The more you can post and engage organically on each of the social networks, the more you will gain from it with your social media marketing efforts. It may take more time and effort but, in the end, it will pay off. Of course, you may use some tools like Buffer, Triberr, and Viral Content Bee to help you along the way. These tools help your social media marketing grow and generate leads for you over time.
Finally, if you want faster results you must purchase ads on social networks. Marketing Land recently said that accepting paid is no longer an option for social media marketing. Yes, it pays to play today on social networks, but you can still grow your social media presence with some organic tactics over time.
Noman @ Nogentech
Hi Oleg,
As social media marketing is one of the best things to do for a business when it comes to reach more target audience, you have shared a bunch of fertile SMM practices to get more valuable users. I was not using Instagram to steer traffic but now i will be using it as well in future. Thanks for your time.
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Noman,
Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Good to know that you have found the tips useful.
Surely, SMM helps in boosting traffic by a lot and instagram – though a bit tricky, but if applied well – sends a lot of targeted traffic.
thanks,
– Oleg
Navin Rao
Hi, Oleg,
No wonder, social media users are increasing rapidly and brings a lot of scope and hopes in driving traffic, and the best way to build a brand. It good to be updated in order to use those proficiently, thanks for showcasing the GDPR updates. Yes, it affected a lot, but things won’t stop, will keep rolling, although its wise to be updated.
As it lets you know how to do it better in order to thrive in the online industry. Thank for sharing the excellent tips.
Have a great day ahead!
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Navin,
Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Surely, social media plays an important role in brand building.
GDPR was a necessity because so much was unregulated on the social media front. It is good to have rules but the balance is important too.
thanks,
– Oleg
Moss Clement
Amazing post, Oleg. The many recent changes in social media platforms have left many marketers confused and perplexed as to how to best share their content on each social media site. Myself included, in fact, sometimes I get scared not to about how to post on twitter. Twitter is my main social media platform, so aia will do all I can to post according to Twitter rules.
You did a great job sharing these informative content.
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Moss,
Thank you for the comment,
Glad you liked it,
Yeah, it is always best to stay updated with all the rules of social media sites – they change frequently and that is why we have to stay on top of things and make sure that we play safe,
thanks,
– Oleg
Vikas Pandey
Hi Moss,
Facebook organic traffic has come as a saver to me after my drop in traffic from google search engine, possibly due to some algorithm update. My only point to say is Social Media have become very critical part of online marketing system now. Thanks for sharing this post with us!!
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Vikas,
Welcome to Temok and thank you so much for the comment,
Yeah, social media organic traffic – especially from Facebook is surely a good alternative and in most cases an extra source or visitors for many people.
Thanks,
– Oleg
Sajid Akhter
Hi Oleg,
Thank you for this wonderful post. Your post gives in-depth information about the ways we should use social media platform. I have been posting my content regularly on Facebook, Google+ and Twitter.
Can you suggest me ways to increase my followers in this social media platforms?
Thanks for sharing, have a good day. 🙂
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Sajid,
Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Always good to hear positive feedback,
For increasing followers, the best way is to follow others who are targeted to your niche and business – simply follow, connect and network. This is a very basic step but it alone is enough to keep growing a steady following …
thanks,
– Oleg
Janice Wald
Hi Praveen,
Great tips: Regarding not being able to download from Instagram. I haven’t tried, but I have embedded Instagram content into my blog which is cool.
I am working on the other sites as well such as LinkedIn.
Janice
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Janice,
Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Always happy to hear positive feedback, glad you liked it,
Yeah, I too embed those content – even from twitter or elsewhere but yeah – can’t download directly from Insta!
Linkedin is always great for networking, the leads there are already qualified for business …
thanks,
– Oleg
Rajkumar
Although you covered all the social networking sites through which you can do social media marketing but I think you forgot to mention ‘Quora’. According to me, Quora is one of the best platforms these days. This website is beneficial for both bloggers and other business people too.
Oleg Kaluger
Hey RajKumar,
Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Yeah, agreed – Quora is truly one of the biggest social sites available now in terms of its traffic sending potential and how uniquely targeted it is.
And on that note, here’s a huge list of bloggers and marketers on Quora – make sure to follow them!
thanks,
– Oleg
Mark Anthony
Hi Praveen,
You mentioned a great list of Social Media Marketing platform. I post my content regularly on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ etc. My favorite social media platform is Facebook.
Thanks for sharing such a great list.
Regards
Mark Anthony
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Mark,
Welcome to Temok and thank you so much for the comment,
Glad you liked the list – I guess everyone shares on facebook, twitter, G+ and many other such top level social sites … but to really stand out, we have to look for more such sites, especially those that targets our niche,
thanks,
– Oleg
Emma Ballet
Hosting is powerful for a Blog and choosing right hosting for a Blog is also important to know.
Thanks for this post that share unique info for Host a Website.
Binod Jha
Hi! Oleg
Social media is the second option for me to drive traffic to my blog.
May I know I haven’t done any GDPR compliance so, Is it good or have to do necessarily. Please let me
How can do so? I don’t know how to enable my GDPR policy.
Thanks in advance! Man
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Binod,
welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
You can read up the rules and make your site ok with the rules … I don’t think it should be an issue if you aren’t from the Europe or America. However, it is always better to follow the rules,
thanks,
– Oleg
Donna Merrill
Hi Oleg,
I’ve done my GDPR compliance on my blog and membership sites. I didn’t want to waste time on that one.
When it comes to social media marketing, I am in love with it! I mostly use Facebook because that is where a lot of people respond to me. I have used Facebook’s paid advertising and boost some articles written. This all gave me a great way to market. So far so good!
-Donna
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Donna,
Thank you for the comment,
Yeah, best to follow the rules and make our sites and services compliant with any rule they throw at us.
The boost feature is really neat – it is one of the easiest and quickest ways to get started with social CPC. Great to know that it is working out well,
thanks,
– Oleg
Nishant Maliakel Oommen
Timely share Oleg.
Most marketers like me are still in the lookout to know what changed with the new reforms. Happy that you covered almost all the top social channels. Its great that most vanity metrics are slowly disappearing, and technology is getting more refined to meet the customers expectation. Also, it make sense from a marketers perspective. they can target genuine people who are interested in a product or service.
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Nishant,
Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Yeah, social media is always dynamic and things changes everyday! Recently, the Facebook privacy thing did make some major changes in the law and the marketers need to adapt quickly to the changing times,
thanks,
– Oleg
Deepak Sharma
Hey oleg,
I kept on searching to get some useful information to increase my social media engagement. But now, I search is over in this helpful article. I kept on posting contents on my social platforms. So i found this article very helpful.
Thank you.
Oleg Kaluger
Hey Deepak,
Welcome to Temok and thank you for the comment,
Good to know that you have found this article helpful,
thanks,
– Oleg
Shweta Reddy
These are some of the best and correct things to do to get a good ranking or your business. I agree with the information you have shared. For our company promotion, we use Tumblr and Quora as an effective medium to promote our services and we do get good responses. You may consider these points too. Thank you again for this informative piece of writing.
Manuel Gonzalez
Hi Oleg
I have always heard social media is good platform for generating traffic. But i think facebook follower increasing only way to run facebook ads i am new in seo let me know how to grow some ethical hacks .
Thank you for posting such a great article
krishna kant yadav
I Agree you Oleg, But My point is little bit different now social media is going into inorganic way. But some of social media is good and they have high PR and give you always advantage
Meet Sen
Social media pattern is changing day by day. You have greatly explain but new facebook algorithm only paid campaign are going viral
California Stayz
When it comes to social media reach, Facebook is always the first platform to come up in conversation. Interestingly enough, it’s also the first platform to come up when talking about the decline of organic reach on social media.
Amitabh
I appreciated to your post..
Social Media is the best methods of increasing visitors and convert to sale for every business.now a day all the business person should use social media for his business
Nishom
Nice post.
Phani
What an amazing post, indeed a piece of valuable information. I loved this article, This is my first visit to your site, will come again to read more such posts.
Social Media is All About getting Branding and get traffic to the Website.