Dos and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing For Your Business

by firstlaunch_admin on Tuesday Jan 23

Do’s and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

Social media has a reputation as a minefield: where brand ambassadors come to be mercilessly trolled, and where well-meaning interns well and truly ‘put their foot in it’. But it doesn’t have to be that way. In fact, if you have little or no experience in social media marketing, the first thing you should know is that it’s not the piranha-feeding-frenzy that it’s made out to be. And if it’s done correctly, it’s actually quite easy, even for small and micro-businesses.

So: if you’d like to know more about the do’s and do not do’s of social media marketing, check out our guidelines below!

Do Engage With Your Audience

Our number one ‘Do’ is to engage, engage, and engage. Engaging with your audience is the whole point of social media marketing, but it’s all too easy to get caught up in one of a few different ideas:

• That nobody will see your post, so it’s not worth posting
• That even if people see it, nobody will engage with it
• That people will see it, and engage negatively with it

And maybe for the first few weeks, or even months, you won’t have that many views or replies to your post. And maybe you will have one or two negative or even downright rude comments. Whether you do or not, though, it’s important to put your brand out there and earn a following over time. That’s how you build your social media marketing strategy from the ground up.

Do Post a Mix of Content

One of the keys to promoting ongoing engagement is to post a mixture of content. If you post nothing but—say—text posts, you won’t give your audience a reason to pay attention or to keep coming back. But it’s true that variety is the spice of life, and your audience will love to see a range of content. Here are a few examples:

• Pictures stand out among text posts. These could be pictures of you and your business at work, doing what you do best
• What’s better than pictures? Moving pictures! Videos and GIFs grab the audience’s attention better than anything else
• Infographics are a great way of breaking down graphs and stats into easy to read chunks

Posting a range of content is vital if you want to earn a following over time. Posting the same old, same old just won’t do the trick.

Do Post on a Range of Social media Platforms

As the old saying goes, you shouldn’t put all of your eggs in one basket. What do we mean? Well, there are plenty of social media sites these days. You have a whole host to choose from:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Snapchat
• Instagram
• Pinterest
• LinkedIn (because professional contacts are important too!)
• Google+

To run effective social media campaigns, it’s crucial that you operate on more than one platform. Say you run a bakery; you should be sharing pictures of your cakes and delicious creations! With this kind of content, you could do well on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and Pinterest. So try them all, and see what works. There are many Social media Tools To grow Your business today, you can use them efficiently to boost your social media engagement.

Don’t Be Afraid of Change

One point to make is that social media is ever-changing. The in-jokes of the internet constantly shift and change, and it’s difficult to keep people’s attention for too long. So if you feel like the way you’re running your social media campaign isn’t working, don’t be afraid to change it.

Like we said above, start exploring different kinds of content. Beyond posting videos and images, you can also start running online-only discounts and offers to bring your audience closer. Or you could try running a user-generated content (UGC) campaign, using your audience’s reviews and posts about your brand as part of your own marketing. There are plenty of ways to switch up your social media marketing campaigns, so if something isn’t working for you, try something that will.

Don’t ‘Rise to the Bait’

No matter what you do, how politely you respond and how much time and effort you put into keeping everybody happy… It just isn’t possible. Social media provides a direct link for customers to speak to a brand or business, so don’t assume you won’t have unhappy customers getting in touch from time to time. The problem is that there are unhappy customers, and then there are trolls.

Even if you aren’t overly familiar with the internet, you will have come across the term ‘trolls’ quite frequently lately. It’s a term which refers to people who intentionally act in a way that will frustrate, annoy and get a rise out of almost anybody. On a day to day basis, you will encounter people like these, and it’s important not to rise to their bait. Trolls might:

• Make fake, over the top complaints about your product or service
• Spam you with messages about anything, everything and nothing
• Directly attack you, your business, maybe even your dear mum!

Whatever you do, though, don’t react to negativity: it only gives the trolls more attention.

Author Bio
Izaak Crook is the head of marketing at AppInstitute a DIY app builder for small businesses and passionate about sharing his knowledge and insights on design strategy, UI/UX trends and driving digital growth through content marketing.