The Dos and Don’ts of Social Media Marketing

So you’ve decided to use social media marketing for an improved online presence, or perhaps you’re trying to revive dead s from the past. Good for you!

However, if you aren’t Cristiano Ronaldo, who had 900,000 followers on the first day he created an Instagram , you should prepare yourself for a tough competition. But there’s no need to worry! Social media isn’t smooth sailing for any business at the start, and we’ve created this guide to help you.

Read on as we highlight the essential dos and don’ts of social media marketing. Knowing them before you go online is imperative!

Enjoy the read!

The Dos

There’s No Substitute for Valuable Content

The significance of posting valuable content for your business is twofold. Firstly, when you share valuable content, your customers remain intrigued. They visit your page organically daily and share your marketing efforts which give you a higher reach. On the other hand, if you’re sharing content that provides no value, you’re going to lose traction quickly, and you’ll lose followers almost every day.

Additionally, another added benefit of high-quality content is the potential to earn a better ROI. .

High quality content = higher traction = conversion = increased revenue.

Keep Your Communication Efforts Consistent

If you’re new to social media marketing and manage many channels, getting lost is easy.

Every channel has a specific tone, and a particular segment of your target mark will use it. That’s because every channel has a unique purpose and base. Your posts on every channel must be tailored for the audience, but keep the messaging consistent throughout all channels.

For instance, if you’re offering professional tax filing services and want to post about it on Facebook and LinkedIn, keep the tone slightly informal on Facebook. That said, don’t go too far and start using a conversational tone in all of your posts.

Finding the balance is essential.

Track and Analyse Activity

Before a marketing manager begins a social media campaign, they set objectives and goals that they want to achieve. Likewise, it would also make sense to establish a system that can help them track results and activity. Before you think about building one yourself, you should know that there are several options available at your disposal, such as:

Google Analytics
Sprout Social
Hootsuite
SocialBakers

And, of course, the built-in analytics feature on almost every major social media platform. With help from these tools, you can easily track engagement analytics like comments, clicks, shares, likes, etc. Moreover, they also give you the ability to check assisted conversions and referral traffic. While most of these tools are free to use, an investment in a social media analytics tool can help you measure the effectiveness of your social media marketing efforts.

But the silver lining behind the grey cloud is that all of these platforms have a free trial period. This lets you understand which platform works for you before you commit. For every business, measurement is the most crucial part of social media marketing. It can dictate how future campaigns play out, solidify successes, show where you’ve failed, and redirect focus when things go wrong.

Keep the Content Balanced

Ready to create a content marketing strategy? Think about content ratio and formats first. You may already know this, but people don’t necessarily expect to see sales pitches on social media. Because of this, you must keep a balance between promotional, educational, fun, and engaging content.

For example: If you’re telling your followers about how you excel at Shopify development in one post, you should perhaps share a fun quiz with them in the next post.

This rule is the foundation of all of the best practices for social media, and to your surprise, you can find the Pareto principle even on social media! Experts say that 80% of all the content you post on social media should be engaging and compel the audience to follow you. The other 20% has to be promotional and must contain an impactful call-to-action that makes the want to know more about your business.

The Don’ts

Use All Channels Just for the Sake of Presence

Earlier in this article, we discussed how every social media channel has a different base and a unique purpose. Consequently, not every social media channel will complement your business’s marketing efforts or its ethos.

As tempting as it may sound, try not to set up an on every channel to have an on that channel. This can dilute your image and do more harm than good for your business. Returning to our example of a tax filing business, it would be inappropriate in this case to set up a Snapchat or an Instagram profile.

However, in this case, three more suitable options would be Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook.

Don’t Overdo It

While you are supposed to post in cycles to maintain significant reach, don’t overdo it. Posting too much can be just as damaging as not posting enough. According to research, 46% of all people will unfollow a business because of a bombardment of promotional messages. This means that if you want to keep your customers engaged, you need to put a cap on your posting.

Don’t know how to do that? A combination of 14 studies has provided the following recommendations:

Twitter: 15 tweets per day
LinkedIn and Facebook: 1 per day
Pinterest: 11 pins per day
Instagram: 1 to 2 posts per day

Get Lost In the Numbers

And conclusively, don’t get too fixated on the numbers of your business’s social media profiles. Several business owners lose sleep because they don’t have enough Twitter followers or Facebook fans. But even though these metrics matter, they’re not the be-all and end-all.

This is where the phrase “quality over quantity” matters—engagement matters. Focus on the kind of attention you’re getting and from whom. The rest will fall into place on its own.