I know, I know . . .

Another blog telling you how to use social media.

You get it—post a photo, share an article, get a few likes—it’s not rocket science. Social media is all about sharing moments with your sphere and as a bonus you gain a few followers here and there.

Here’s where it gets juicy.

The fact that you’re reading this means you know how important social media is to grow your business. Harnessing the power that lies within Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and all the other platforms can be overwhelming, but I’m here to point you in the right direction with my favorite social media hacks.

Social media hack #1

The saying “Keep your friends close and your enemies closer” holds true in the digital world, too. However, something like “Keep your Facebook friends close and your competition closer” is better suited for this first tip.

If you have a Facebook business page set up for your company or brand, then you have a lot more information about your competition available to you than you might realize. In your business analytics page, there are tools that will tell you what pages your followers are most likely to also follow or engage with. Take these steps to get there:

From your Facebook business page, click the Pages tab in the upper left corner, then hit All Tools at the bottom of that menu.

From here, click Audience Insights under the Plan tab.

Choose what audience you’d like to focus on when prompted. (I suggest starting with People connected to your Page).

Type your page name in the box labeled People Connected to and watch as your analytics are updated.

Click the Page Likes tab and scroll down to view your competition!

Social media hack #2

Next, I’m going to tell you the best secret to getting leads through Instagram: GET ON INSTAGRAM!

There are a lot of people who are trying to resist the millennial social platform, but here’s your not-so-subtle wake-up call—your clients are on Instagram!

If you’re already using this avenue to capture leads, excellent! Next step: leverage Instagram Stories.

If you’re new to the story game, don’t be afraid to experiment. Post some shots of your day, behind-the-scenes at work, or a poll here and there. Exhausted all those options and looking for something new? Try incorporating some fun gifs! Instagram now allows you to search within the story creator for relevant content to add that extra oomph.

1. Tap your profile image from your Instagram page to access your story camera.
2. Take a photo within the app or upload one from your camera roll by swiping up from the bottom of your screen.
3. Tap the square smiley face icon at the top of your screen.
4. Hit the GIF icon and get to searchin’!

Social media hack #3

Finally, have you ever poked around Twitter? I’m not talking about the mindless scrolling through your timeline. If you haven’t really explored its features, chances are you don’t know about my next hack: Twitter’s advanced search.

Let’s say you wanted to search for tweets regarding relationship marketing. So you use the search bar and find pages and pages of content. Great, but too broad. You want to narrow it down by demographic or location? DONE. Enter: the advanced search feature.

With this goldmine-level discovery you can search by phrase, keyword, account, date range, and even language! Gone are the days of not being able to narrow your search to tweets written in Turkish. (Kidding, but that’s an option!)

1. Determine what you’re searching for. For this example, we will use relationship marketing.
2. In the search bar at the top right of your screen, type relationship marketing.
3. Once the results load, click Show in the Search filters box on the left of your screen.
4. Then click Advanced Search.
5. Fill out all the necessary fields and click Search!

Social media is all about connecting with friends, family, coworkers, long-lost college roommates, and anyone else you might think of. But, it can (and should) be leveraged as a marketing tool for your business.

Do me a favor, and think about your marketing budget. Hopefully part of that is allocated to ads on social media, but don’t get discouraged if it’s not. You can still see a return from posting organic content and the tools listed above are going to get you there. The only way to know if something is going to work is to test it. In the words of the social network king himself, Mark Zuckerberg, “The biggest risk is not taking any risk. In a world that is changing really quickly, the only strategy that is guaranteed to fail is not taking risks.”