Six Social Media Best Practices to Employ

Social Media is the new medium of expression. It encompasses all, doesn’t discriminate, listens to all, and more importantly is accessible to all. It’s just like a tattler or a newsmonger, who will always listen to you, and in turn tell your views to a thousand other willing listeners too. However, like the newsmonger, who does not keep quiet and never takes a cue about social etiquettes, social media can be tuned and set up to our own liking.

When you do think about social media as a person who you like and dislike at the same time, chances are there may be other people who might have the same thoughts about it. To get acceptance and approval from your audience as a company you have to make sure that you always put your best foot forward, and never have a foot in the mouth scenario. It could be attributes that you give yourself on social media as an entity, and also the measures you take on social media to come across as a suave and savvy business persona.

Below are some pointers that will keep the likes and views rolling while minimizing and negating the negative chatter.

Timing

Timing of your posting on social media is key. A general cursory search on Google regarding this would throw up many results and reports for you to see. Always know when your target audience is active. Where are they based from? Who are they? What is their age? Many of these questions directly will answer the engagement and the response you get to the many postings you as an individual, and as a company might be doing. It can be the difference between right and wrong, and lots and no engagement. If you have scheduled posts, see when they work, do trial and error. Get reports for your audience; see if constant postings or spacing posts works. Every situation is different. You should be able to read it better to engage better.

Minimizing White Space

Ever seen posts with an intriguing catch and then nothing to follow it? You start scrolling and then see a URL that takes you to some other site? Gets your beard every time? While it was a good strategy, it spiraled away and people started getting irritated by it. Rather, if you write long copy in status spaces with clear, concise, and maybe a tad long copy, chances are that people spend more time on your posts and take decisions based on what you have written there. Search engine ranks better with ‘Blog Style’ posts that provide good info and are to the point.

Tags and Mentions

Always know when to use tags and mentions, and you should use them judiciously. Tags are a powerful feature, which when used judiciously will provide you with a wealth of information regarding your company or product. There is a fine line between using them and bordering on ‘Spam’. Always use tags that are already in vogue or which resonate with you; viral tags can be used to just to mix things up. However, if you would like your tags to be repeated, repetition and constant usage is the name of the game.  The same way mentions are an important tool to resonate with your target crowd, but don’t use them to pinpoint people, target people, calling out people or rather people who want nothing to do with you. Tagging and mentioning people is seen as an outright spam and should be well avoided.

Emoticons

Emoticons, the 4 bytes of data that tells a thousand messages. When correctly used, they convey many emotions that your words might not be able to portray. It gives out an emotion to your written word, and also tells the feeling behind the sender when he had sent it. Used sparingly and judiciously, it’s like a breath of fresh air, and gives your intent and purpose. If using it too much and too often – seen as SPAM and kiddish.

Engage

The name of the game is “to engage”. Like, comment, mention, reply. Do whatever, but never let any mention of you go unacknowledged. Acknowledging shows you as a proactive, as someone with their ears to the ground. It shows you are the generous host of the party who talks with every guest rather than an orator who just delivers his sermon from a podium.

Be active

Never ever share content from third parties. Apart from strictly business related, everything that you say or do online, or in the social sphere should have your stamp on it loud and clear. Mix up your content, don’t think one channel’s fodder will be the other channels’ manna.

With the above points in mind, not only will you have an enviable social media footprint, but something that people look forward to.