Today more than ever, having a social media presence is necessary. Not only do customers expect it, but social media marketing can also help you increase sales. It is also a great tool for learning about your target audience and industry demands.
Social media marketing is an inexpensive, yet effective, way of reaching customers across a range of platforms. With organic social media marketing, you get to understand your followers and find more unique and more effective ways of promoting your brand. In this article, we will discuss the do’s and don’ts of marketing on social media. This will allow you to create an effective and long-term social media strategy even with a limited budget.
What is Social Media Marketing?
Social media marketing involves using platforms like Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest and TikTok to effectively reach a wider audience and communicate with outstanding or potential customers.
An effective social media strategy will humanize your brand, drive traffic to your website and establish a reputation that competitors can’t ignore. Depending on your goals, you can also generate leads and sales. Some small businesses even will use social media as their main source of customer service. Meaning that their consumers can message them directly to resolve any issues. There is a range of possibilities on what social media can do for businesses and below are a few tips on the do’s and don’ts of social media marketing.
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The Do’s of Social Media Marketing
Do post on social media consistently
A common mistake businesses make when executing their social media strategy is to start all guns blazing and start publishing with an intense posting routine, just to then quickly lose interest and either stop posting as regularly or at all in that matter. This is a recipe for disaster and highlights the need for a posting schedule.
Bulk planning content, to then schedule said posts, makes publishing social media posts a breeze, whilst avoiding the issue of forgetting to post. Tools like Hootsuite and Buffer are recommended as you can schedule posts months in advance. With scheduling tools like these, you have no excuse not to have a stream of regularly published content.
Do find a sustainable publishing frequency
Following on from my previous point, finding a sustainable and effective publishing frequency is perhaps one of the most important aspects of building a brand on social media. There is no rule that the algorithm favours, so you should simply commit to a frequency that you can uphold and sustain long-term.
Do have fun with social media
There is a fine line between business and personal humour when it comes to social media, and it is crucial that businesses get creative. You need a good connotation associated with your brand. Spicing up your social channels by using inoffensive, yet humourous captions or memes, can not only help increase engagement but also your retention rate.
Do use a range of Media
Social media is forever growing. It is imperative that your brand keeps up with the times and this should reflect in your content. Using the same old 3:4 aspect ratio image can get repetitive and may even be missed by your followers. Hence why it is important to involve some degree of variation in your feed.
Video media is increasing in popularity and platforms like TikTok have already taken advantage of this. Because of the amazing interaction, video media has received, other social platforms like Facebook and Instagram and integrated video media wherever they can. For example, Instagram has now favoured reels and they have increased the number of seconds reels and stories can be.
This is why it is so important for your business to produce unique and creative content in a range of media formats.
Do use the right social platform
There are numerous social media platforms available for businesses to use, but just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Here are the main considerations you should think about for each platform:
Facebook:
This platform alone has 2.11 billion users, which means it is a very popular platform for businesses to appear on. Facebook allows businesses to do a range of things activities like, posting a range of media, scheduling posts, setting up a Facebook Shop, create events and incorporating paid advertising. When determining whether or not to be on this platform, you need to think of where your target audience is, because if they’re not on Facebook, chances are you’ll be fighting a losing battle.
Instagram:
Instagram is an aesthetically pleasing platform. Users are encouraged to use a range of media to produce and publish good-looking content. Most businesses are on Instagram as it is a great platform to connect with consumers as well as other businesses. Collaborations and influencer marketing are often seen on this channel. This form of social media marketing has proven beneficial for companies, especially on Instagram. Instagram allows users to post reels, images and stories, set up a shop (linking to their Facebook one) and set up paid campaigns.
Twitter:
This platform is designed to help connect like-minded people to allow them to share thoughts and feelings with a wider audience. Twitter allows users to discover stories regarding world events and news, follow other businesses and profiles and post opinions and relevant information. The platform is a very fast platform and for businesses, it is very easy to get lost. However, with the right strategy, Twitter can be proven very beneficial for brand recognition and customer service.
TikTok:
TikTok is a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share 15-second videos, on any topic. It is the fastest-growing social media platform ever and it is unlikely that you won’t find competitors there. As a result of TikToks’ clever algorithm, it is the easiest platform to grow a presence on. Also, brands have said they see much more engagement on TikTok compared to other platforms.
This doesn’t mean it’s right for you. You can only include one link on TikTok and that is in your bio. This means actually getting people from the platform to your website is more difficult than normal. TikTok does allow you to run paid ads, which gives you the opportunity to share a page or for consumers to buy directly from the ad. TikTok is very beneficial for brand recognition, but maybe not so much for sales. This is something you will have to consider when choosing to be on the platform or not.
![Social Media Marketing- Image showcasing aspects of social media](https://www.apprenticetips.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/11/social-media-423857_1920-1024x576.jpg)
The Don’ts of Social Media Marketing
Don’t make grammar or spelling mistakes
Successful businesses, with a large social following, will always get a second pair of eyes to look over work before publishing. Grammar or spelling mistakes, take away from the users’ experience and does not prove your brand to be reputable.
Don’t give in to trolls
With a rise in following, businesses are bound to run into trolls. Trolls post inflammatory content with the sole aim to get a rise out of the account. Instead of giving them what they want, you should remain professional and report the account. You do not want to humour these kinds of comments. This will only encourage more and dampen your brand reputation.
Don’t forget about your stories
Stories are there to keep your brand at the top of your follower’s minds. If you do not utilise stories fully, you are not taking full advantage of the tools you have. Stories should be used to share announcements, special events, industry information or product information. They should be interactive and keep within the company’s brand.
Don’t forget your target audience
When bulk planning content, it is imperative to remember who you are catering your content towards. If you lose sight of this, you will lose engagement and retention. Post interactive stories and write open captions so that your followers have the chance to interact with your brand. Promote user-generated content, run competitions and create hashtags to encourage users to talk about your brand, because after all, they are the most important people in this scenario.
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