20 Data-Backed Ways to Upgrade Your Social Media Marketing

There was a time when you may have had to contract a marketing or public relations firm to help expand your reach, but with the remarkable boom in social media, even the smallest businesses now have access to the same platform blue-chip corporations use to market themselves. Social media offers a cost-effective, user-friendly way to build your brand, expand your Internet presence, and ultimately increase business. You just have to know how to make the most of it. Follow these 20 tips below to help you out.

1) Tell Us Why We Should Follow You

Twitter accounts that used words like "founder," "speaker," "expert," "guru," and "author" in their bios had more followers than the average account. Tweet This

2) Use Contra-Competitive Timing

Posts made to Facebook timelines on Saturdays and Sundays tend to get more Likes than posts made during the business week. Tweet This

3) Use Tall Images on Pinterest

As image height in pixels increased for images posted to Pinterest, so did the average number of times they were repinned. Tweet This

4) Put Links 25% of the Way Through Tweets

Links placed just before the halfway point (in characters) of tweets tended to have higher clickthrough rates than links placed elsewhere. Tweet This

5) Use Questions on Facebook

Simple yes/no questions like "should" and "would," as well as multiple choice questions like "which" tend to get more comments than average Facebook posts. Tweet This

6) Use Links to Get Retweets

While fewer than 25% of all tweets contain a link, more than half of retweets contain a URL.Tweet This

7) Stop Talking About Yourself

As the amount of self-referential content posted by Twitter accounts increases, follower numbers decrease. Tweet This

8) Say Something New

Retweeted tweets tend to contain fewer commonly used words than a random selection of non-retweeted tweets. Tweet This

9) Stay Positive

As the amount of negativity posted by Twitter accounts increases, follower numbers decrease. Tweet This

10) Use Calls-to-Action on Facebook

Facebook posts that included the word "like" tended to get more Likes than the average post. Tweet This

11) Stay Away From Buzzwords

Facebook Pages that used industry buzzwords tended to have fewer Likes than pages that did not. Tweet This

12) Share Links to Interesting Content

Accounts in which between 60% and 80% of tweets contain links tend to get more retweets than accounts that tweet fewer links. Tweet This

13) Use Photos on Facebook

Facebook posts that use photos tend to get more Likes than text, video, or link-based posts.Tweet This

14) Use Hashtags on Instagram

Photos that included hashtags in their descriptions on Instagram tend to get more Likes than photos that do not. Tweet This

15) Talk About Food on Facebook

Facebook Pages that mention food tend to have more Likes than the average Facebook Page. Tweet This

16) Tweet Around 4 p.m.

Tweets posted around 4 p.m. Eastern time tend to get more retweets than those posted at other times. Tweet This

17) Don't Be Neutral on Facebook

Posts with positive sentiment get more Likes than posts with negative sentiment, but both positive and negative perform better than neutral. Tweet This

18) Write Longer Tweets for More Clicks

Clickthrough rate of links in tweets increases as the overall length of those tweets also increases. Tweet This

19) Go Short or Long on Facebook

Posts that either contained very little text (such as photos) or upwards of 700 characters tend to get the most Likes. Tweet This

20) Ask for the Retweet

Tweets that contain the call-to-action (CTA) "please retweet" are four times more likely to get retweeted at least once, compared to those that do not include the CTA. Tweet This

Have you tried any of these social media marketing tactics? Does your own data support their effectiveness?