In this day and age, everyone knows how to be socially active. All it takes is a funny post on Facebook or a well-filtered shot on Instagram, right?
Unfortunately, no. For businesses and brands especially, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
Luckily, the experiences that Sage Island’s marketing team has every day can help you and your brand master the art of social interaction across the web, or at least make a decent head start by knowing what you definitely should and shouldn’t do while using your business’s accounts.
Do: Interact with your followers.
No social media user wants to believe that his or her comment isn’t appreciated or even read. But the truth is, tons of business accounts overlook the comments and likes that their posts garner from loyal followers. In our experience, that’s a good way to make those fans lose interest in your brand, and quickly. So rather than give them the cold shoulder or the brief nod of acknowledgement, show your followers that you’re paying attention and you want their feedback by responding to comments, acknowledging likes, and at least occasionally doling out a few of those yourself without any prodding from the social activity of others.
Don’t: Stoop to a troll’s level.
By now, you probably know what a “troll” is in this sense; it has become a common term among social media users for someone who meddles around on other accounts, basically playing devil’s advocate to pass the time. As such, every account will see at least one in its lifetime. The best thing you can do as a brand or business with a troll on your social media trail? After giving a good-natured response to the first attempt at ruffling your feathers, you’ll essentially want to ignore it. On Facebook, you can hide the comment from everyone but the perpetrator and his or her friends, but otherwise it’s out there for all the world to see. Just remember that if the language gets nasty, you’re well within your rights to report this user to the proper channel. What you don’t want to do is respond in kind – your business’s image will suffer for stooping so low, and it just isn’t worth the potential fallout.
Do: Use hashtags… appropriately.
We all have that friend who seems to think you can’t post on social media without a mile-long list of hashtags. With too many hashtags, your post is an eyesore that your followers immediately skim right over as they thumb through their newsfeeds. But, if you use the right hashtags, and space them out in the correct way, you can use your social media campaign posts to create new conversations and invite others to join you in addressing certain topics. In doing so, you’ll also build rapport as an authority of the matter, and your followers are more likely to turn to you when they want to peruse subjects related to your brand’s industry.
Don’t: Change up your brand style on a whim.
To be clear, we don’t mean that you should never shake things up or try something new. But regardless of who publishes your content, your brand’s voice should ring through loud and clear at all times. When you enlist the help of an experienced marketing agency like ours to develop your strategy, the team walks you through the process of building this voice and presence, creating a set of guidelines that either we or your staff then carry over into regular posting schedules. That way, anyone can post for the brand or business without worrying about losing consistency.
There are plenty of wrong and right ways to go about your social media publishing, but with a seasoned agency on your side, you can learn the dos and don’ts in no time! Contact Sage Island if you’re ready to dive in today.