It’s easy to get stuck following the same tactics in social media marketing, particularly if one strategy has been lucrative or has grown your business exponentially. Amazingly, though, many social media “gurus” continue with campaigns that aren’t bringing in revenue.
 
While it’s important to keep up-to-date with new strategies and evolving techniques, it’s also important to ditch so-called “best practices” that aren’t delivering. Sometimes, it’s what you don’t do that contributes as much to your success as what you do do.

​If you’ve been a copywriter for any length of time, you know the ongoing debate of what the ideal length of a sales letter should be. As long-time A-list copywriter Mark Ford notes, everyone purports to despise long copy, yet it has always consistently out-pulled and outsold short copy.
 
But what about social media posts? Is shorter copy is the ticket to higher sales?
 
Some say that copywriting has evolved—and social media is to thank (or blame) for it. But saying it has evolved is too broad a brush to paint this picture.
 
It’s more accurate to say that copywriting has expanded. Different media platforms may take center stage now, yet the same principles upon which advertising and marketing were built in the mid-20th century still apply.
 
So, in today’s social media-dominated world, how much is too much? Is it possible to optimize the length of a post to engage and convert readers? What’s the ideal length of a post to drive viral engagement that reaches as many people as possible?
 
As always, it’s up to you to find out what your unique audience wants and cares about. To know their pains and concerns so you can offer the best solution, service, or product for them.
 
Generally speaking, though, it depends on your forum. But to know for sure, you’re going to have to test and find out what works for you. Neither guessing nor being creative for the sake of it is going to cut it. 

Quite possibly, the hashtag symbol serves as a cultural icon defining the digital generation. Virtually everyone has seen one or one thousand, but not everyone knows its origin, objective, and reach. And while the hashtag came to life at a time of a national disaster, to convey updates and messages, it’s now taken on a life of its own and has applications to the business world.

Spawned just over a decade ago on Twitter, the hashtag symbol organized content that gave readers easy access to information. Later, “#bostonstrong” became a viral inspiration to commemorate the victims of the 2013 Boston Marathon attack, and the idea spiraled from there. Seeing the vast impact and ability to drive traffic with such a minimalist effort, digital divas have turned the hashtag into a multi-faceted approach to promoting ideas, products, and events.
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How does this fit into your business model? Easy. #itworks. Italian automaker Audi waged a hashtag campaign in 2011 following a tweet directed at them from a fan. They created a social media marketing campaign, “#WantAnR8,” and offered a loaner Audi car to the original tweeter. Five more fans were also given keys, and by the end of the campaign, Audi had run a wildly successful promotional gig.

We’ve all been there, right? Thinking we’ve crafted a great Facebook post only to see it linger, no comments, no reactions, no click-throughs. It’s not the best feeling, that’s for sure. And if you’re not getting results, it’s not very efficient—in terms of time or dollars.
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So, what can we do to boost engagement on Facebook? Believe it or not, there are plenty of simple steps we can take to make sure our message is breaking through. 

As you enter a new year of doing business online, you’re likely to be increasingly more comfortable with All Things Internet. But the learning curve is high, and it seems as if a new technology or platform develops every day. A decade ago, the term “social media” meant learning to connect with networks of cohorts and others using a computer.
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That was then; this is now. In 2018, the most essential aspects of life have some involvement in social media— health, finance, news, social interacting, and the most explosive area, shopping.
It’s good news for fledgling and growing ecommerce merchants hoping to reach new clientele. But it also requires an above-average familiarity with how social media works.