Small businesses are increasingly turning to social media to interact with potential customers and retain interest. It’s become an inexpensive form of public relations and marketing. However, it is also a very public forum, so here are some tips on social media etiquette if you’re just starting out using social media:
1. Keep private separate from public
This is important for any professional on social media. Make separate personal and private accounts to avoid posting everything about your life to your business’s newsfeed. As much as personality is encouraged in social media marketing, there is a fine line that should not be crossed.
Adding onto that, never post to your social media accounts when you are angry, frustrated, sad, or under the influence! You never know what you might regret posting, especially since the social media world is such a public forum. This is one way to keep a good social media etiquette.
2. Don’t just talk about your business
Part of social media marketing is finding a good balance between talking about your business and interaction. That is to say, don’t post fifteen tweets a day about the services or products that your business offers- tie it into current events, interact with people who are talking about topics relevant to your business, or find poignant quotes or interesting images!
3. Compose and Edit
Compose your tweets or posts in a word document before posting them so that you can edit them more easily for grammar or spelling mistakes. This way, you can also see your week’s (or month’s) worth of content in one place for better organization.
4. Fill out your profile
It is important for people on social media platforms to know who they are talking to, in some semblance, despite the anonymity that social media can provide. It is crucial for your business to have a profile picture (perhaps your logo), a cover photo or banner image, and all indicated fields are filled out.
In case people click on your username or handle, they will be able to find out more about your business, and the legitimacy of a detailed profile will also make people feel safer about interacting with you or following you.
5. Be mindful of scheduling
Spacing out your posts is very important, and no one wants their newsfeed to be cluttered with twenty posts in a row from the same person! Consider what times would be best for your content to go out by looking at the time zones and locations of your target audience. Spacing your posts out will also reach a higher number of people.
