This will depend on your specific goals and objectives, but following a set of general best practices can help guarantee that any effort and money you put behind social media campaigns will reap real results.

Here are the top five factors you should consider:

1. Strategy

Posting blindly and randomly on your social media platforms won’t get you the results you need. Before you even begin, have a strategy in place that maps out where you currently are, your goals, who your target audience is, and what your intended plans are to develop your social media presence over the long term.

This plan will serve to guide every decision you make for social media marketing and provide a clear template that you can evolve and improve over time as you tick off your goals.

2. Content

No matter how solid your strategy is on social media, it’s nothing if you don’t have high-quality, engaging content. If your prospects or followers don’t feel compelled to read through your posts or engage with your content, it’s highly unlikely that they will take additional action like checking out your website or signing up for your newsletter.

Pay attention to your content—it will be the primary driver of audience participation.

3. Consistency

Consistency is important in social media marketing. When social media is treated as a novelty, you basically end up posting a lot on one day, and then nothing the following days, then going back to high activity the next week.

Audiences generally like knowing what they can expect from you. So, when your topics shift constantly and your volume fluctuates, it tends to put off potential followers and alienate prospects you’re hoping to attract.

4. Audiences

Pay attention to key social media features that allow you to target your audience. Most platforms offer the option for businesses or brands to tailor their audience reach to a specific group of people based on age, interests, location, etc. This is one of the best ways to determine what audience group will best respond to your product or service. Make the most of it and don’t simply hit the boost button to get more likes or follows. Be more thoughtful with your efforts and you’ll get better results.

5. Analytics

Social media platforms now have built-in mechanisms that allow you to track your post-performance. This kind of data is invaluable for marketers and highlights more opportunities for you to improve your efforts. Everything from the kind of content you post to how well your audience responds to your content can be tracked, measured, monitored, and analyzed so that it can be used as a basis to maintain or improve your efforts.

Gather this information regularly to significantly boost the success of your social media campaigns.

Bottom Line…

Take all these factors into consideration when planning your next social media campaigns and you should be able to reap good ROI for your time and effort.

Let me know what you think by joining the conversation on Twitter or LinkedIn. Or if you have any questions you want me to answer, leave a comment below.