Do’s and Don’ts of social media marketing

Nowadays, social media is considered a boundless entity at this point. Today, when people meet each other social media handles, but a few times back when people use meet each other, they use to ask for each other’s phone numbers.

Individuals are more protective of who they provide access to their Facebook page than their email addresses, and social media users must be more specialists in the type of information they are ready to share on social media accounts.

The constant change doesn’t affect just the effect of social media, but also businesses that aim to build their online presence as well.

From advertising to generating leads to conversions, businesses can easily multifold their returns via Social media channels, and in a very manner, candidates can also impress hiring managers, and get best suited for jobs.

But nowadays, we can see that many brands are struggling to find the sweet spot in social media which will make their social media accounts above the other brands.

If your social media is not been working out for you, let me say this first — it’s okay.

This article will definitely help you in getting your social media plan back on track. So let us help you get closer to your goal with these Do’s and don’ts of social media marketing

Do’s of Social Media Marketing

1. Do complete and update your social media pages

Just like it’s said “First impression is the last impression. Think of your social media account as your digital first impression. Social media pages that have partially completed profile appears to look less professional.

Take a few minutes to thoughtfully complete and fill out all your profile information, including contact information, and upload good quality profile pic and cover photo.`

2. Regular post on your social media pages, but don’t overpost.

When you create a social media profile, being consistent is always suggested as the top priority, but now a question will arise “how often you should and shouldn’t post to your brand’s social media page?

The short answer to this question will be, “As often as you can post quality content, consistently”.

The long answer to this question will be you should be posting consistently, quality content on a level that identifies well with your audience — per channel.

• - Posting infrequently — your audience will forget you.
• - Posting too much — you’ll overcrowd your audience feed.

But at the beginning, you are actually looking for the basics, a place to start. And we’ve got it for you-

• Facebook — is starting phase, you should post at least 1 post per day, after that you should post 3 times a week.
• Twitter — A minimum of 3 tweets per day, and a max of 30 times per day. Consider having a tweet or retweet once per hour.
• Instagram — At least post a minimum 1 or maximum of 3 posts per day.
• LinkedIn — At least twice a week and no more than once each business day.
• YouTube — For YouTube, you should create a posting schedule and stick to it. Whether it can be one video every Tuesday, or two videos per week, make a schedule that matches the amount of quality content you’re able to consistently create and upload.

3. Be unique and engaging with your content

Your brand is directly proportional to the type of content you share on your social media pages, and that is why it is very important for you to ensure proper representation of your business that translates your uniqueness and expertise in the best convincing way possible.

You should feel proud of yourself and what your business talks about, as this will add credibility to your brand’s voice and create a ground for a healthy discussion on your related social media platforms.

4. Social media is a marathon, not a 100m race

Remember this “there is no such thing as creating content that will go viral”. There is no secret formula, no strategy.

Content either goes viral, or it doesn’t, this thing can’t be controlled.

What can be controlled is to make a decision to be in this race for a long time.

Things like posting consistently, creating relevant and engaging content, and engaging with your audience all take time — but all of this is part of a marathon.

5. Do Make a connection with your audience

Use social media to nurture existing relationships with your audience and simultaneously build new ones as well.

To make an effective relationship, you should know how often you should engage with your target audience is also very important.

Using social media tools that automate updates to your client’s social media accounts would be very helpful in this.

6. Prioritize your Social media networks

Even though you haven’t been an avid user of social media, you might have guessed that different platforms serve different needs.

Depending on your business and other factors like the field you’re working in, the size of your company, the product or services you’re selling, your target audience, and your business goals, you should consider social media platforms to be present.

• Facebook — its target audience is versatile and diverse. Facebook is mostly used by B2B businesses that engage with their audience through expert and informative content. Also, written content performs better on Facebook, so consider this also while building your content strategy.
• Instagram — this social media platform is for sharing photos and videos and is most popular among all, so no wonder that many retailers choose Instagram to sell their goods and raise brand awareness. If you’re selling clothes, shoes, jewelry, cosmetics, or any other kind of things — Instagram is the right place.
• LinkedIn — if you’re working in the B2B field, LinkedIn is a preferred platform to build an expert reputation and form a professional network.

Before choosing any social media platform you should first analyze your business and the social media platform you’re going to enter before creating an account.

Even though some of the social media platforms might be extremely popular, it doesn’t mean that you’ll also be able to achieve your business goals with them.

7. Think before you post

An amazing article that supports the trending topic which is true to your heart (like count me in for #Spidermannowayhome) may be good for your personal Facebook account, but it is not relevant for your business account.

If you are writing something keeping in mind your target audience, the content should reflect their attitude and beliefs.

If you keep your business and personal accounts separate it will easily help you identify content that matches your brand image while also being able to share content that you find interesting on your personal account.

8. Experiment with different content formats

Your content shouldn’t always end up on written posts or pictures. Some content formats must have been popular in 2021 and might continue to be relevant in 2022.

• Videos Depending upon your goals, consider different video formats like behind the scenes (the process of creating a product), DIY (Do it Yourself), tutorials, product reviews, and so on.
• Checklists and Infographics — Social media isn’t a place where people expect direct sales, so useful content is a great way to engage with your audience and show that you care about them.
• User-generated content — It is a great way to get social proof that your brand is in demand and popular. Brands like — Bath and Bodyworks, Zappos and Apple, and other brands pick the best pictures of their followers and repost them on their official pages by giving proper credits to their users.

9. Set Realistic Expectations

Has anyone ever told you to set attainable goals?

Setting achievable goals is important to how you manage a brand’s social channels as well. Why?

Well, it feels good to know you’re winning for one and most importantly, you get to see the growth.

Growing from an average of 50 new followers per month to 200 is a small growth, but it’s growth, and you can collect data that will help you understand the improvements you’re making. Celebrating success helps you to learn and adapt (with all things in life if you think about it).

Dont’s Social Media Marketing

1. Don’t Post the same content on all social media accounts

It’s a rule of thumb among social media marketing do’s and don’ts, to create unique content for every social channel.

As we mentioned earlier, different social platforms serve different purposes. Your followers don’t expect long articles on Instagram just like people don’t expect product showcase videos on LinkedIn.

However, it doesn’t mean that you can’t repurpose and adapt your content for each social media account you own.

If there’s a newsworthy event coming up, consider different content formats like video storytelling, images, or written forms for different social media.

2. Don’t Post content with spelling/ grammatical mistakes

There are few things that your follower’s eyes roll more than reading a good post with some spelling mistakes or grammatical errors.

Even though some of these mistakes can seem minor, they can actually ruin your credibility with your target audience.

When writing on behalf of your company or representing a business, check the copy before hitting publish. Then check it once more.

3. Don’t Ignore the Negative Feedback and Comments

People tend to leave feedback on social media and it’s always not positive.

However, it doesn’t mean that you ignore those feedback, remove comments or direct messages (DMS), or get into an argument.

When you get negative feedback, make sure you

• Respond to them quickly in a respectful and polite manner
• Don’t patronize your customer
• Try to resolve the conflicts one-to-one. Shift conversations from public places like from comments to e-mail or telephone communication.

4. Don’t go hashtag crazy

Everyone thinks that adding as many hashtags as possible can so they can be seen by more people. WRONG

This may have worked years ago when social media platforms were jumping to gain popularity, but this strategy is no longer effective.

Overuse of hashtags can make the post feel less genuine and juvenile.

If anything, you’ll attract is more bots than people who are actually interested to see what you are posting.

5. Don’t need to jump into every trending topic

Using trending topics to share your expertise, engage with followers and lend an opinion serves as an easy way to increase your audience reach and position your brand as the leader in that space.

Platforms like — Twitter, where trending topics can change by the hour, it can be hard to gauge which make sense and which don’t.

But unless the topic or hashtag is not right up to your brand’s ally and you’ve done your research on it, don’t do it.

Adding hashtags or joining conversations just to keep up with the trend can backfire and even cause you to lose followers.

For example — A few years ago DiGiornio tweeted what they thought was a funny, clever tweet following a trending hashtag.

What they didn’t realize was that the hashtag was being used by survivors of domestic violence who were spilling emotional anecdotes about personal relationships with abusers.

6. Don’t replace human interaction with marketing automation

Marketing automation is what keeps on giving to all of us folks in marketing. It lightens the load and allows us to work on other projects.

Don’t get stuck in the pitfall of relying on it.

No marketing automation tool can replace human interaction.

Responding to comments, answering messages, and directing your audiences to resources — requires a special human touch.

Nobody likes talking to a robot on the phone, why would your audience want to talk to a robot on social media?

7. Don’t invest in the paid promotion too early

Invest in paid promotion only after you’ve got at least 20–30 good posts on your social media account.

For new social media accounts, it is important to follow the AIDA (Attention, Interest, Desire, and Action) rule to draw attention, stir, interest, and desire, and finally get people to act: follow, comment, like, etc.

Make sure that you have got an appealing page description that describes your business and states the benefit (why should people follow your page) and several relevant, informative, and engaging posts to attract and retain customers.

8. Perform grey-hat social media activity

Mass following, Mass liking, mass watching, activity, chats, etc. are a so-called grey gat SMM(Social Media Marketing) that helps you boost your account for a short period of time, but the quality of that boost is unquestionable.

Think of it: when you get followers from activity chats or giveaways, they won’t become your loyal audience. More than likely, they’re interested in a mutual following or getting profits like a prize or giveaway.

What’s left is getting a loyal follower base through an organic promotion like

• Collaborate with influencers with a similar audience
• Guest Posting
• Posting content with relevant hashtags
• Posting evergreen content that resonates with your target audience and stirs interest
• Post during the right time
• Paid promotion like target ads.

9. Don’t ask too much of your followers

Lines like these — Subscribe to our YouTube channel! Like this post, if you agree with this. Comment your thoughts below, etc. Are you annoyed with this? Great so are we.

Now you and your brand look spammy, which pushes those potential followers away. Don’t do this.

Instead, focus on creating engaging content that your audience wants to engage with and not making them feel like this that they must engage with it.

CONCLUSION

In this blog post, we’ve stated some of the most important social media marketing do’s and don’ts you should follow when creating a brand new account or reviving an existing one.

These social media practices and rules are applicable to basically all platforms, so if you don’t know where to start — start with them.

Remember that you must post about 80% of relevant and useful content and 20% of promos. Track actionable metrics and make changes from time to time to improve your social media marketing strategy.

If you guys want to share some more ideas, then let’s discuss them in the comment section below.