Social media from a corporate point of view is an important part of branding, customer service and online marketing. Get it right and your brand’s revenue and reputation could rocket, get it wrong and the damage could be irreparable. So it is important to know the basic etiquette of having a presence on social media, which is why I have put together some do’s and don’ts of using social media in the corporate world.
DO: Be Fast To Respond
People feel that a brand on social media is approachable, and will often post comments or send messages. It is important to respond, and in a timely manner, to ALL comments and feedback, positive or negative. This shows the customer that their opinion is important to you and their voice is being heard.
DO: Concentrate On Image
The way your brand is represented by you and interpreted by others on social media is vital to your reputation. That is why everything you post, share, comment on or respond to must be polite and censored, to ensure you are keeping up the brand’s image.
DO: Connect With The Competition
There is nothing wrong with openly following and checking out the competition, and expect them to be doing the same to you. As long as you are all respectful of each other, there is no reason why you can’t get along, and it gives you a regular insight into what they are up to.
DO: Help Promote Others
For a number of reasons that many people don’t realise, promoting others and their content is beneficial to your company. Not only does it give your followers something to keep them interested and break up the constant talk of YOU, making your brand appear more diverse, it also puts you in the good books with others and encourages them to do the same for you and your content, helping your reach a wider audience and get a reputation as a friendly and thoughtful brand.
DO: Be Clear and Concise
You should always aim to be understood if you want your content to be enjoyed and shared. Too many companies forget that their followers may not know as much about the company or the industry as they assume and therefore their content becomes less engaging.
DO: Be Active
Social media never sleeps, so your company needs to be as active as possible if you want to keep your presence known. Multiple times a day is the ideal for interactions, and a minimum of one post per day will keep your company on the radar.
DO: Be Visually Exciting
Although text is the main aspect of your social media postings, you need to maintain a level of visual stimulation to keep people interested. Having changing and stimulating profile images and header images, as well as including multimedia content such as video and images when relevant to a post will help to peak the interest of your audience.
DON’T: Constantly Push Sales
Yes, the main aim of any marketing strategy is to get people to spend money with your company, but you need to tailor your approach. Being too pushy with sales on social media is not the way to create a worthwhile presence. Instead have a steady stream of engaging content and posts that offer more subtle nudges towards sales, and include some that are purely for the audience’s benefit, no sales involved.
DON’T: Repeat The Same Responses
When someone comments positively on your brand’s post or page, it is easy to want to just say ‘thank you’, but this is impersonal and generic, not giving the brand much of a personality or giving the person commenting much gratification. Try to personal responses to show there are people behind the brand and it will encourage more people to interact.
DON’T: Steal Digital Content
Digital content belongs to someone, whether it is tangible or not, and too many people online forget that. It is too easy to ‘borrow’ or ‘repurpose’ content or images from social media without going down the proper routes, which can cause serious problems for your brand if the owner finds out, not to mention the ethical issues.
DON’T: Go On and On About Praise
If someone compliments or praises your brand, it is easy to feel like shouting about it to everyone, but doing so can often look bad on your company. It’s nice to receive praise, but don’t share every single nice comment or mention of your brand, simply concentrate on saying thanks to the people who said it, after all not many people go out of their way to give positive comments these days, its usually only when they have a complaint they want to let everyone know!
I graduated in 2011 with a 2:1 degree in BA HONS Journalism and have since set up my own freelance business specialising in digital marketing. I write for a variety of digital marketing blogs as well as working on blogs and social media channels for clients in a range of B2B sectors.
You can catch me on the following social media channels:
Twitter: NatJWilson;
LinkedIn;
Google+.
