Mind Your Social Media Manners
It’s no secret that social media marketing has changed the face of the marketing game. Marketing is no longer a one way medium. Now, it’s a two way street and it’s all about communicating with your audience. Social media is a great way to get in touch with your customers, listen to their wants and needs, and respond to their inquires. However, many businesses are still confused as to the right way to market online using social media. Social media as a whole is a lot more informal than any other form of marketing. But how informal should it be? Remember, even though it’s informal, you’re still using it as a business tool. Therefore, it’s important to keep your target audience in mind and avoid doing anything foolish that might turn them off.
Here are 3 social media etiquette tips:
Separate the personal and the professional
Before setting up a social media profile, decide if it will be used for business or personal purposes. Think about who you will be connecting with on it. For a business profile on Facebook or Twitter it might seem obvious that it will only be used for business purposes. But what if you are the CEO or SVP of marketing of a company? It’s likely that people know who you are and might want to follow or connect with you. If this is the case, be careful. Even though your personal page might have been set up for personal reasons, it has become an extension of your business without that even being the intent. The line between personal and professional can get blurry in the social media space. It’s important to realize this and act accordingly.
Think Twice
Before posting anything on a social media site, think about what you are going to post. Then, think about it again. Make sure that the content is timely or relevant to your target audience’s needs. Make sure that it couldn’t in any way be found offensive. It’s OK to be playful every now and then, but there’s a difference between making someone chuckle and making someone angry. Sometimes there’s only a fine line between the two. If you have any doubt, get a second opinion. Ask your colleagues what they think. If you still aren’t sure, just don’t post it. It’s not worth the risk. Word travels fast in the social media space and even if you delete a post, it’s likely that it’s already been seen and passed along by numerous people.
Interact and Respond
The whole point of social media is to, well, be social. Engage with your target audience by asking them for their input. If someone asks you a question, be sure to respond. If you ignore people it will only frustrate them and cause them to have a negative experience with your brand. You certainly don’t want that to happen. Another great way to get noticed and build your reputation is to share the work of others. It’s a good way to make connections with people in your industry and hopefully they will return the favor someday.
7 Responses to “Mind Your Social Media Manners”
The Search Engine Optimization (SEO) Journal is Written by SEO Expert:
Nick Stamoulis
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nick@brickmarketing.com
Brick Marketing - SEO Company
A good article with food for thought. I built up my social following with a mixture of business and marketing insights and personal thoughts. I think this gives my profile some personality and more of a reason to follow me – solid business communications and some entertainment. I recently launched my own website (walksandwalking.com) which gives my connections an additional dimension, that being “he also practices what he preaches”. I have given serious thought about segmenting my audiences but for the time being I’m happy with the content I put out there. I monitor how many new followers I get each day and how many unfollow and temper my messages accordingly. I recently asked my facebook friends if I should stop posting my walksandwalking.com messages on my personal page and the answer was a resounding “Yes!”. I have since set up a fan page for people who read my articles to Like the page. They key here is to always “ask your audience” what they want and then implement it.
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Nick, It’s no brainer to see that social media is here to stay for good. Given vast variety of the existing channels to choose and stick with, it’s time for such a hot space to enter into a new category. There is a need for a portal to provide a quick and intelligent decision for both the consumer and the enterprise about their online connections.
A Platform to Help us to Distinguish Our Quality vs. Quantity Friends, Fans, Followers, and Companies
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube, Flickr and others have been doing a decent job of providing additional marketing exposure and even in some cases, additional revenue. However, as more and more social networking sites pop up, how do you manage your brand across all these channels? Maybe more importantly, which one of these sites should you select as the one that will help you best reach your target audience? The proliferation of the social media avenues is becoming overwhelming.
This glut of information reminds me of the early 90’s when WWW was adopted broadly by the general public. Every company rushed to have a presence, to the point it became literally impossible to find the right information on the Web. That’s when a better generation of search engines – at first the Yahoo! and then Google – entered the market and helped us find the most relevant information by just typing simple keywords in their search box. If you had asked before Google launched, if there was a need for another search engine – most would have said no, we already have those….
Then came Web 1.0 & 2.0 – Youtube, Flickr, myspace, Facebook, Twitter and countless others have turned everyday people into content producers, influencers and experts. We basically tripled down on the information overload How do you know which channels to select for deploying your social media strategy? How do you know which one is the right channel to let your fans and followers to find you, your products, and services? Most importantly, who is Joe Smith that is recommending that person, that company, that product?
I hope my awesomize.me can accomplish such a mission. The site is not another social networking platform. Yet the portal to all your existing social media channels. The platform helps you, your fans, your potential clients to make an intelligent decision as to which company to connect to or follow via which social media channels and why? It’s free!
Elias
CEO & Founder
http://awesomize.me
I just published a blog post on 13 Marketing Lessons Learned in 13 Years, and we are on the same page! Manners are still extremely important in business, but especially in marketing when you only have a moment to capture attention.
http://www.vimm.com/13-marketing-lessons-learned-in-13-years-part-2/
Nick,
Thanks so much for a much-needed article about social media etiquette especially the point about thinking clearly about what you are posting that might make people angry! I’ve learned not to post anything about my political views and I temper what I say about my spiritual beliefs because that can upset people, too. Also, I’ve seen many people talk about their personal problems on Facebook – that’s a big no-no for me.
I hope we’ll see more discussion about this issue because many people don’t realize the impact of what they post online and how it stays around forever.
“Interact and respond” … one key element that many people fail to participate in.
Within that category should include shuck and jive comments that serve no purpose other than to try and encourage the author to return the favour – a common practice in pay-per-click channels.
For the record, “nice share” is not a legitimate addition to any shared media … especially when it is thoroughly researched and well-written.
By the way, I am aware that this piece was posted some moths ago, but I feel that the content is important enough to keep pushing it forward.
Thanks everyone for the comments and for reading!
Take Care,
Nick