Imagine the Statue of Liberty. She’s a little over 300 feet tall. Crazy enough, that just happens to be the average number of feet of content a person scrolls through their phone each day.

Say whaaat? 

So, in a world where there is more content on your phone than ever before, how do you stand out? I can’t give you a magical secret recipe, but I can offer the three Ts that I go by, that’ll also give your business’ social strategy a fighting chance.  

1. Thumb-stopping. 
   Is that even a real word? The world will never know. But whether you’re sharing content about a restaurant or a bank, think about it like this: Imagine you’re on a bus and you only have seconds before the next stop when someone will push you out of the way. You only have that short amount of time to focus on the content on your phone. Given that the average human attention span is currently about 8 seconds, what’s going to get your thumb to stop scrolling on Facebook? Does the post stand out? Is it truly even interesting? If you wouldn’t stop scrolling to read your content, is anyone else going to? It’s 100% better to not post anything at all, than to post something not worth stopping for.  
   
2. Turn it off. 
   On Facebook, 85% of videos are watched without sound. Facebook actually said that adding captions to videos can boost view time by 12%. And 80% of people are more likely to watch a video until the end if it’s captioned. Okay, so what? That means you need to *clears throat* design with sound off, and delight with sound on. Pretend that no one—not a single soul—will click on your video to hear it (because most likely, no one will). Make sure the viewer can fully understand your message without ever clicking it. But if they do click, add something they’ll appreciate listening to, but don’t spend too much time if you don’t have it. Here’s an example. You know those Tasty cooking tutorials? I know you know—we have all watched the one-skillet chicken magic. You’ve watched, but could you actually tell me what the sounds in the background for the videos are? Probably not. Once you go back and click on one of the videos, you’ll notice that the background music is nothing special at all, but an added bonus for the few who do click. They do a great job of designing with sound off, and delighting with sound on. 
   
3. Tall.  
   There was a time when recording videos vertically made people gasp in shock and horror. Oh, how times have changed. A recent study showed that 94% of smartphone users hold their phone vertically and more than 75% of video viewing is vertical. That means, please, for the sake of humanity, no more 16×9 videos. Think MOBILE (that means TALL). With 96% of Facebook users choosing mobile use over desktop, everything you create must be in the mindset that it will be seen through the phone. When you’re scrolling through your feed, which image catches your attention? The tiny, one-inch-tall video that’s sandwiched between two other posts above and below it, or the one that literally fills up your entire screen because it’s so tall? Something as simple as optimizing posts to fit the screen has actually been shown to increase return on investments by 50%. Just remember to always use your discretion, because there are some exceptions, like Facebook ads and Twitter posts.

Social media, undoubtedly, is an ever-changing medium, so it’s important to stay up to date with content that takes the cheese. These tips may be simple, but they are strong. They’ve changed my social media strategy and, hopefully, they boost your game too.