I had so much fun earlier this month joining Social Champ’s Ask Me Anything (AMA) about Social Media. I thought it might be fun to offer a recap and a video for these questions for others to benefit outside of the Facebook Group. 

We cover topics including how to gain organic reach, hashtag research, influence marketing, content planning, and more. Without further ado, here’s the recap video followed by the text. 

Social Media Questions Answered

Social Champ AMA Recap

“In today’s AMA session, we are joined by Bridget Willard. She is a social media marketing expert and has experience in running high ROI campaigns for her clients. Today, she will answer your questions about everything social media.” Fahad Ahmed

Q Yumna Hafeez: Hello Bridget Willard. What are the best practices to gain organic reach for social media posts?

A Yumna Hafeez In order to get, you have to give. Make sure your brand is replying to other people’s posts as well as replying to comments on your own. That makes a big difference to people.

Reciprocity.

I talk more about it in my book, “.”

Q Maggie Andrews: Hi Bridget Willard, How should one go about planning content strategy for social media? What things should one consider including in it?

A Maggie Andrews Great question, Maggie. Content should support your business goals. Start with a marketing brief.

Specifically content should be helpful. If customers are repeatedly asking you a specific question, answer it in a blog post or video (or both).

Q Andrew Thompson: Hey Bridget Willard, thanks for being here today. What can a person do on social media to increase following?

A Andrew Thompson One of the best ways to increase your following on Twitter is to follow people back. Use your Twitter lists. Don’t worry about people “clogging up your feed.” Be generous. Be helpful.

Q Fahad Ahmed: Bridget Willard, you are a speaker and a marketing consultant; between these two, which one do you enjoy the most and why?

A Fahad Ahmed I really love consulting. It makes me so happy to help business owners get the most out of their social media efforts by giving them confidence and a strategy that actually works.

Q Touseef Ullah: Hey Bridget Willard! Can you please let me know how to come up with different ideas for social media campaigns?

A Touseef Ullah Campaigns should support the overall strategy.

And the strategy should start with the business goals.

“It depends” is an annoying answer but yes it does depend.

However, spending time reading the posts from your audience helps. What questions are they asking in presales or support? What do you want the audience to feel after using your product?

Gimmicks work for a few minutes. But involving people and building community works for the lifetime of the customer.

Q Muneeb Syed: First of all, thanks for taking out time from your busy schedule. I would like to know how can one leverage social media to generate leads for business?

A Muneeb Syed I actually have a video on how to do biz dev on Twitter.

But the short answer is to spend time reading other people’s posts and being helpful.

You want to build a relationship; don’t cold call them.

Q Syed Hamza: Hi Bridget Willard, How should one utilize analytics to plan social media campaigns?

A Syed Hamza Analytics should indicate that you’re doing the right thing.

One thing to remember is those analytics are a picture of the past. It shows your behavior and the customer’s behavior.

It doesn’t show things you don’t measure.

Q Mark Cooper: Bridget Willard what’s your opinion on influencer marketing? Should brands focus on incorporating them in their social media strategy?

A Mark Cooper Everyone is an influencer. Paying stars is a waste of marketing budget, IMHO.

Instead, build and reward the super fans you already have. Put them on special Twitter lists. Ask them to guest blog post. Invite them on a podcast. Send them swag no one else gets.

Build a community of people, not a group of people following money.

If they follow you because they love your product, money won’t lure them to the next highest bidder.

Q Marium Fahim Khan: Heyy! Great session. Here is my question. What’s the best approach to find relevant hashtags for your niche?

A Marium Fahim Khan Heya!

Hashtag research is simply that: research. Spend time on Twitter/IG looking at the hashtags people are using in your niche and test.

Introduce a hashtag and ensure that that tag is relevant to the text of the caption/tweet.

Especially on IG, the algorithm shadow bans (from what I’ve heard) keyword stuffing so to speak. So you’ll want to be sure the caption is relevant.

Don’t just put #SATX when it’s not talking about San Antonio, Texas, for example.

And be sure you’re following back your followers, replying to their comments (not just liking them) and commenting on other people’s posts. This is huge.

There is no magic in marketing and hashtags are far from a work saver.

Do the work.