Social Media Marketing - 16 Feb 2021

How to Use Social Media to Your Advantage: Marketing Do’s and Don’ts

Maybe you’ve heard the saying there is no such things as bad publicity? Well, it turns out that there is a wrong way to draw attention to your business, and many businesses are suffering from social media marketing strategies, or a complete lack of a strategy, which end up doing more harm than good.

To help you get it right, here are some of the top social media marketing do’s and don’ts.

The Do checklist:

• Make sure your social media accounts are up-to-date
• Think before you post
• Interact with your audience
• Provide useful information
• Be consistent

Update Your Profile and Pages

Social media accounts often turn up in online searches for businesses, and if yours is only partially complete or hasn’t been updated in years, your business can come across as unprofessional, or worse, people may even believe you are no longer in business. Social media is one of those things; if you are going to have it, you need to maintain it, and if you’re not going to keep it up-to-date, you shouldn’t have it all at – however, as more and more customers report checking out a business’ socials before committing, quitting social media is not a recommended action.

Post Thoughtfully

There is a wrong way to draw attention to your business, and customers are smart. Your posts should be thoughtful and provide something of value to your users, even if it’s just an image on Insta that you think users will find amusing, your posts should elicit a positive reaction, fit your brand, and be unique. If you are posting content, make sure what you are posting is truthful, well-written, and relevant to your audience, otherwise you could be sending up red flags about the quality your business.

Be Social on Social Media

Sharing useful content on your social media accounts is great, but you should also try be active in interacting with your users. This is a great opportunity for you to showcase what makes your business, your brand, a company people want to associate with. If someone asked a question, answer it; did someone mention your business online? Comment or like back. Social media is all about making connections, and connections are very good for business.

Be Consistent

So, you don’t need to be covering your social media accounts 24/7, however you should be checking in and posting at least once or twice a week. This helps to keep content fresh and preserves your position at the forefront of a potential client’s mind.

The Don’t List:

• Don’t be spammy
• Don’t write in ALL CAPS
• Don’t post content that is full of grammatical errors
• Don’t reuse posts
• Don’t invite controversy

Don’t Overwhelm Your Users with Sales Pitches

As a general rule of thumb, your posts and content should be 80/20: 80 percent of what you post should be entertaining or informative, and content directly related to your product or service should be limited to 20 percent of what you post.

If you are constantly bombarding people with invites to buy or information about your products, they are not going to follow you. You want people to remember you for the right reasons, not because of a slew of annoying posts.

Do Not Post Before You’ve Re-read it at Least Twice

The occasional spelling error is nothing to worry about, however if you are constantly posting material that is riddled with spelling mistakes and poor grammar, you could be losing credibility with your audience. Don’t let a rushed post negatively impact your brand.

Don’t Recycle Your Posts

You may or may not be a huge social media user outside of work, but that does not make it okay to use the same posts across all your social media accounts, or worse, constantly reuse previous posts. You don’t need to get involved with every new social media platform that comes out, but you should be active on at least a few of the big ones, like Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn, and because each platform is a little different in format and audience, you should not be using the same posts across all of them.

Social media marketing is one of the best ways to spread the word about your brand to a wider audience than you would be able to reach through traditional marketing methods. However, even a great tool can underperform, or cause harm, if it isn’t wielded correctly.