As a content marketing manager, I’m in the unique position to have significant insights into our own use cases. I'm using these insights to bring unique and underrated social media marketing tips that will boost your brand's social presence.

We create templates on our collaboration platform to help marketers track progress and work with stakeholders on their campaigns, content strategy, and social media plan.

As someone who juggles all of these different tasks, I share our pain points with our users. And that’s why I’m more than familiar with the struggle all social media marketers share: the seemingly impossible task of holding people’s attention on over-flooded social media platforms.

Creating shareable social media content is an endless uphill battle. As a marketer, you’re constantly competing for people’s attention in an oversaturated, endlessly updating space.

Between algorithm changes, new platforms with different requirements, and trends that pop up and fizzle out in days–social media marketers have to be on their A-game, all the time.

So what skills do we need to find success? How can we make our content stand out and stay memorable? We’ve compiled our top 5 underrated tips for social media marketing success to help you find your way.

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1. Use a template to map out your plan

Of course, you should use a calendar to plan out all your posts. But how do you keep track of when to story versus post a reel? Which campaigns do you need to keep an eye on? And who’s available to star in your TikTok? While it’s no secret that social media managers are expected to have graphic design, video editing, and writing skills, sometimes you will need to involve other team members in your post creation process. So you’ll need to include this in your plan, as well as deadlines for review before it’s time to publish.

This can be too much to keep track of in a simple Google calendar, so we suggest using a ready-made template. There are hundreds of such templates available, but we’ve made one at Collato specifically for planning and tracking the progress of your social media content. Our social media manager made it herself, tailoring it for tracking our social media campaigns, planning a posting schedule on a calendar, and requesting copy and design feedback from other members of the team.

2. Follow who your audience is following

The best way to figure out what kind of content your audience engages with is to see which accounts they follow and interact with the most.

Determining this can be a time-consuming process, but worthwhile if you want to see exactly what appeals to the people whose approval you’re after.

Start by following back some of your followers, ones who, based on their profile, seem the closest to your ICP (ideal customer profile).

See who they interact with the most, and then follow those accounts too. Make note of what kind of content they’re posting, what voice they’re using, how frequently they post, and what their message is.

If you can make it fit within your own brand guidelines, then you can start incorporating similar types of content into your own social media marketing plan.

3. Interact with your community

If you’ve already built up an audience on your social media channels, don’t let that hard work go to waste! Engage back with people who share, like, comment, and message you.

Not only does this validate them and encourage further engagement, but it also gives you insight into what people’s interests are.

Even big brands like Nike take a personalized approach in their social engagement in order to establish a community presence on Instagram.

By talking to your audience directly, you can get first-hand information on their doubts, interests, struggles, and joys so you can create content that speaks to them. Plus, we all know how the algorithm works: engagement means more exposure.

4. Choose your format wisely

Based on your audience research–what content types did you see being shared the most? What’s easily read, viewed, or shared, with minimal effort and high engagement?

Generate content types that are easy to understand and read, like infographics, reels, short how-to videos, tweets, etc.

It’s not always about packing in as much information as you can–it’s about picking a powerful message in an easily digestible, memorable way.

Play around with different content types and take note of which ones are the most successful.

5. Choose consistency over originality

We content creators have it beaten into our heads that being unique and coming up with the freshest, most viral idea is the only way to achieve success in social media.

However, arguably more important than originality is brand consistency. Staying on message, sticking to your brand story, and maintaining your USP can be equally as powerful if not more so than going viral.

Of course, the right viral marketing strategy, could work well for your brand, but integrated marketing tactics are proven to stick in people’s memory.

Think about it: do you remember the most viral trend on Instagram last year? Probably not. Do you remember Nike’s slogan? You surely do.

So there you have it! These tips should give you a head start in creating a social media plan that engages your audience and helps you grow your brand.

Unfortunately, there’s no one secret to success when it comes to social media marketing; it’s a matter of trial and error, staying on top of your strategy, consistent messaging, and being able to quickly adapt to changing algorithms and trends.

We hope this helps get you on track! For more marketing and team collaboration tips, check out Collato’s blog.

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Catherine Norris is the Content Marketing Manager for Collato, a software solution with collaborative workflows for teams aligning on creative content. Straight from kick-off to go-live.