It doesn’t matter how much time you spend creating amazing, compelling content if nobody ever sees it. If you really want to connect with your target audience online, your content needs to be optimized for each platform.

This isn’t really news for most marketers, but there are some simple optimization tactics that you could be overlooking. Today, we’re focusing on Facebook and Twitter optimization.

Briefly – here are the three pillars of content optimization:

1. Engaging Content: Well-written content which is laser-focused on your target market.
2. Timing: When does the post go out and when will it be seen by your target consumer.
3. Social Media Optimization: Do your posts contain keywords, hashtags, tagging, and more that can get your content seen by greater numbers of your target audience?

Optimizing for Facebook

Facebook—it’s one of the oldest social media platforms around today and still the most used. However, the Facebook we have today is very different than the one that existed 5 or 10 years ago. It’s constantly changing, which means our optimization strategies have to change with it.

But do not fret! There are still some tried and true ways to optimize your posts on Facebook. Here are four quick and simple tips for further Facebook content optimization:

1. Every Post Needs a Visual: Let’s start off with the most obvious tip – visuals are king on Facebook. Visuals have been said to drive increased engagement of 60% over posts without images. So start creating your own images, take photographs, or find some online to increase your post’s engagement.
2. Keep it Short: Facebook allows you to create very long, detailed posts. But just because you can doesn’t mean you should. In fact, the highest-performing Facebook posts tend to have just 50 characters or fewer! 
3. Tagging: Are you mentioning another Page in your post? Then tag them in it! Even if you are using source material from a newspaper, it is a good rule of thumb to tag as much as possible. This will increase the reach of your posts.
4. Native Posting: All of your posts (whether pictures, links, video, anything) should be natively posted through Facebook as the site favors all information that is posted directly through them, rather than a third party. This is especially true when it comes to video, hashtags, and tagging.

Optimizing for Twitter

Now let’s move onto Twitter. This is a much more intimidating site for many marketers, as the learning curve can be steep and fewer brands find the platform useful. 

However, when used to it’s fullest potential, Twitter can be a powerful tool for any marketer. Here are four key Twitter optimization tips:

1. Keep it Short: We probably all know that a tweet on Twitter is maxed out at 280 characters, but that doesn’t mean that you should use them all! To maximize the sharability of your tweets, try to keep them under 100 characters.
2. Don’t Overuse Hashtags: You have a very limited amount of space to get your message across, so you can’t afford to use it all on hashtags. Try to work your hashtags into the content of your tweets to save space!
3. Use Mentions: These are basically the same as tagging someone on Facebook. When you are mentioning another account, make sure to add their username to the post. This will notify them and boost the chances of a retweet!
4. Don’t Forget About the Visuals: While not every tweet needs to have images, adding some to your content mix will give you the edge over your competition. So grab some of the ones you are using in your Facebook (or other social media) campaign(s) and add them to your Twitter updates.

And there you go! Just following these tips in your social media posts can make a huge difference in how many people your social media updates can reach. Now go get optimizing!