3 Social Media Marketing Optimizations to Grow Your Community

In this age of AI, where website traffic is plummeting and people are turning to the walled gardens of social media sites to search, learn, and buy, your digital marketing plan must move beyond hoping people show up to your website to convert into donors or users.

Remember, just because you build it doesn’t mean that they’ll come – this isn’t Field of Dreams.

While you’ve invested in your email marketing over the years, smart marketers are always adapting to changing user behavior. As ChatGPT, Claude, and even Google become their own type of walled garden, the communities you’re building on the social media platforms become increasingly important for engagement.

Here are 3 ways to optimize your social media marketing and grow your community.

Add Descriptive, Meaningful Alt Text to All of Your Images

Alternative (ALT) text has long been a best practice for your website, especially when it comes to making your site accessible for people using assistive technologies. But as users turn to social media for search, including descriptive and meaningful Alt text on the images you post can be a huge boost to your content.

For social networks like Instagram, where visual imagery is the core feature, and even on platforms like Facebook, X, and LinkedIn, where content posted with links will actively be de-boosted, the content you include with your post takes on a greater importance. Witty captions, inside jokes, or a mess of emojis may work well for your existing community members, but it’s not going to help AI tools better understand your content or new users discover your account.

Writing detailed, thoughtful content for your captions is obviously important, and now, so is the Alt text you add to the images in your posts. Use that opportunity to describe the image you’ve posted, and enforce it with your brand messaging. Do your best to write Alt text that gives meaning to users who rely upon it for a description of the visual, while also adding context for the platform’s search tools and for AI tools.

Here’s a recent Junger Explains it All discussing more:

Properly Title Your Documents Posted to LinkedIn

If you’re publishing image carousels on your social media accounts – which can easily be repurposed from your existing content – you’re already creating content that increases stickiness and that the platforms love.

(Not sure what types of social media content to create? Steal these ideas!)

When posting to LinkedIn, make sure you’re saving the carousels as PDF documents, rather than as a collection of images. This way, the’ll get displayed in LinkedIn’s embedded document viewer, making them automatically shown as carousels with easy-to-use next/back arrows.

Here’s an example of a recent post on our LinkedIn:

What’s even prettier about this type of content is that it has a custom title you can see right at the top. That’s great for usability, accessibility, and discoverability. Every time you upload a document, make sure you include that custom title so you don’t end up with PDF-1-final-2026.pdf showing instead.

Choose Custom Thumbnails for Your Video Content

I’m sure we’ve all seen the over-the-top thumbnails that YouTube creators use on their videos – the ones where the creator makes a goofy face, maybe holding a stack of money or some random object, and large, clickbait text enticing you to watch.

You shouldn’t make thumbnails that go against your brand guidelines, but you should create or choose thumbnails that give new viewers some idea of what your video is about, hopefully with enough of a tease that they’re interested to find out more.

The type of thumbnail you choose obviously depends upon the video itself, so here are some general ideas of what to do:

• If your video contains text, consider using that in the thumbnail so people watching on mute can read what your video is about
• Faces may or may not make a difference in click-thru rates; it can help if the video includes a well-know person, but may not otherwise
• Avoid generic imagery or simply your organization’s logo – when someone is looking at a grid of video thumbnails, specificity always helps drive engagement

Don’t let the platforms select the thumbnail for you, and don’t default to the first frame of your video. Spend time selecting or creating a thumbnail that adds value and helps explain your video when it’s competing against every other video for attention.

It may seem like optimizing the content you post on social media may just be building your home on someone else’s property – and there’s definitely some truth to that. In a world where SEO can no longer drive vast amounts of traffic to your site, building your brand and community on platforms where the people are can make a huge impact.

Have questions about optimizing your social media to grow your community? Reach out and let’s talk.