The potential use of social media for business can be daunting. But today’s consumers expect brands to engage with social media, so their absence is often worrying.
But just having a presence on social media is not enough: if you want to impress customers and get a good return on investment, you need to know how to use it properly and learn best practices. When used and managed correctly, social media can help increase your business’s brand awareness, drive traffic to your website, raise your customer base and even boost your revenue. Our work with The Ethical Butcher shows just how effective social media can be.
With this in mind, we’ve compiled a list of social media do’s and don’ts to help you avoid common mistakes and get the most out of your social media profiles.
1. DO: Complete and update your social pages and profiles
First impressions are meaningful and long-term. Think of your social media accounts as your digital first impression. social media accounts that are only partially filled out automatically look less professional. Take a few minutes to carefully fill in all your profile details, including contact details, and upload high-quality profile pictures and cover photos.
2. DO: Separate business from pleasure
When building a brand, it’s helpful to separate your personal and professional social media pages. If you’re consistent in the type of content you share on your business profile, your customers will know which account to follow. Also, avoid overwhelming friends and family who follow you with personal updates.
For example, a link to your latest blog post should come from your business page, and a video of your dog in the garden should come from your page.
3. DO: Think before you share
What you post represents you and your business. Be proud of who you are and what you represent as a business while being mindful of the image you create through the content you share. Consider factors such as the target audience, the expectations of the platform, and the content that makes you look like an expert.
4. DO: post regularly
It leads to the big question: how often should you be in touch with your online community? It may vary depending on your business and industry, but a good rule of thumb is at least once or twice a week. If you post too infrequently, you miss an opportunity to build brand awareness, but you risk alienating your followers.
Keep the new content top of mind and give your customers more time. Our clients can also publish posts themselves and are encouraged to do so.
5. DO: Prioritize your networks
It can be fascinating to try every new social media platform, but getting stuck is dangerous. Focus first on the social networks you know your customers are on. Most likely, these will be Facebook, LinkedIn, Instagram, and maybe Twitter. Spend more time improving your presence on these platforms and less time trying new ones unless you’re sure where your best customers spend their time. Regardless of your industry, producing quality content on the three major networks is worth your time and effort.
Providing helpful content is nice, but that’s not all social media can offer. Interacting with others is also essential.
Do you see a question or comment on Twitter that you can respond to? Send the person a friendly reply.
Looking for recommendations? Ask your Facebook audience.
Did someone mention you, tag you, re-tweet you, or share your post? Give them a quick like and comment!
6. DO: Interact with your audience
None of them are promoting anything in particular, just maintaining a friendly exchange. Interacting with others adds legitimacy and makes you known to a broader audience, so don’t be afraid to get involved.
7. Don’t: Be in demand
Don’t constantly ask your Twitter followers to “retweet” or beg your Facebook friends to “like” your page every week. It’s outstanding for followers of your account to know that you have a company page and what they can look for if they follow you. But be strategic. You can keep doing it, but if you win them over with applicable, shareable content, much better.
8. Don’t: Become a Spammer
It’s all very well to retweet, like, comment, post, and share, but keep it in moderation. No one wants their social networks to be populated by a single account. Such as, don’t join 20 groups on LinkedIn, posting the same self-promotion in them, and then stopping interacting with the members. Don’t follow a large number of random Twitter users hoping that they will follow you back. Don’t post self-promotional content where self-promotion is not allowed, and it is not the impression you want to give.
9. Do: Handle criticism properly
If you are faced with a topic that has unleashed a wave of criticism on social media, the worst thing you can do is dodge it. Try to respond and not get defensive. Overreacting to criticism can quickly go viral (in the wrong way). Please make an effort to fix the problem and let those upset online know when it has been resolved.
10. Don’t: Complain
All businesses have their ups and downs, but complaining that a customer interaction or business deal didn’t go as planned makes you look unprofessional. Remember that you are trying to distinguish yourself from the competition. It can be a less-than-ideal way to stand out. If potential customers see you talking about others, they may think twice before doing business with you.
11. Do: Help more than sell
Who wants to have their newsfeed constantly interrupted by sales offers? No one. Even if you’re in business to make money, that shouldn’t be the focus of most of your social media posts. Keep in mind the 80/20 rule. 80% of the content you post or share should be entertaining or informative, and no more than 20% of your social media communications should be directly related to the products or services you offer.
12. DO: Match your content to the platform
Each social media website has its own purpose and its own audience. You need to understand this and tailor your content and tone to the right social media platform to be successful.
Here is a breakdown:
- Facebook is informal and focuses on connections and sub-communities. Don’t be afraid to join pertinent groups and share with others. Keep it friendly.
- LinkedIn is focused on business people, and the content shared there tends to reflect that. Such as, it’s not the best place to share photos of your kids.
- Twitter is great for quick conversations between businesses and individuals but is more suited to shorter posts due to the character limit.
- Instagram is ideal for sharing something visual, such as a real estate agent’s house listing or a baker’s delicacies.
13. DO: Take care of grammar and spelling
An occasional grammatical or spelling error is not the end of the world, but don’t let it become a pattern. To avoid mistakes, prepare your social media updates in a spell-checked document or spreadsheet
14. DON’T: WRITE IN ALL CAPS
ARE YOU PISSED AT ME, HAVE I DONE SOMETHING WRONG, LEAVE THE CAPITAL, LET GO! Not only are they visually threatening, but they also convey that you are annoyed, angry, or aggressive. Reserve this spelling for occasional emphasis of individual words, for example, when something is essential. Always be mindful of the tone you use with your words.
15. DO: Tag other companies as a site
social media is about sharing, and this means you should endorse your favorite restaurants, shops, and other places when you’re out and about. Be sure to add your location to your Instagram photo or Facebook status, so people know where you’ve been and, more importantly, how to get there. This is a great way to support other entrepreneurs and raise awareness of your brand in the community.
16. DON’T: #Abuse #Hashtags
Your post will be linked to all other posts on that topic and with that hashtag by using the appropriate hashtags. This is a convenient way to categorize and search for content on social media. However, you should not turn every word in a post (or an entire sentence) into a hashtag or include unrelated hashtags in your post. Used correctly, hashtags increase your online visibility and followers, and Overuse makes the post look #spammy and becomes #ineffective.
17. DON’T: Share the exact same message over and over again
Put yourself in your followers’ shoes – would you like to read the same post every day from the people or pages you follow? It is lazy and tacky to share the same social post repeatedly on the same networks. If you want to revisit previous content, be creative with the delivery. Try rephrasing the text or using a new image instead of posting the exact same thing.
18. DON’T: Share without researching first
On social media, it’s easy to share content from another account. With the flood of content and information constantly coming at us, it is easy to forget that some content comes from dubious sources. Sharing content is often seen as approval of that content and the user who posted it. So be careful what you share: it could become part of your brand.
Before you click “share” or “retweet,” first check the account that shared the information to ensure it can be associated with that source. Many companies have inadvertently shared information that was not properly vetted and turned out to be false or shared by a company or person with a shady past.
19. DO: Share without expectation
Persistence and patience will pay off. Investing time and effort in social media doesn’t mean you’ll see great results right away. But you might, and that’s a good thing. As with starting a business, your reach may be slow at first. Then you’ll make contacts, build a reputation and develop a strategy.
20. DO: Give credit where credit is due
Stay on the right side of social media good manners By crediting the author or photographer when sharing an interesting article or beautiful image. Take the time to find the account/handle responsible for the original post and credit them in your post.
Also, thank those who mentioned or retweeted you. You can make great contacts if you engage well with others on social media.
21. DON’T: Obsess the numbers
It’s important to remember that brand awareness and growing your network is a long-term effort. We know it’s easy to get caught up in the numbers game, but try not to. While having lots of followers can be good, it’s quality over quantity.
If you have 1,000 Twitter followers and half of them are spam accounts, your tweets are being delivered to an audience that doesn’t truly exist. So stress less about your follower count and concentrate on providing engaging content for your audience.
22. DO: Have fun!
Using social media for your business doesn’t mean you should stop having fun with it. Add variety from time to time. Try live video or interactive polls and keep your posts friendly and fun. You will find that you can enjoy this part of your business rather than dread it.
As the social media landscape continues to develop, social media etiquette for entrepreneurs will also constantly change. Keeping up with current best practices and incorporating them into your social media strategy will keep your marketing efforts up to date and your business on target.
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