How can you better ensure your social media efforts will help you accomplish your brand’s objectives in 2019?
Observe these dos and don’ts.
The dos:
1. Think before you post.
What you post on your personal social media accounts can affect how people view your company. Think carefully about how posts that issue commentary on hot-button topics like religion, politics or gender issues might impact your relationships with customers, vendors and others in the business community.
2. Let your voice be heard.
On your blog and social media channels, let your readers see your personality shine through. Many people follow bloggers because they like what the writers are saying and how they’re saying it. Share your unique insight and strike a conversational tone that engages readers.
3. Be real.
Show your audience that you have real people behind your logo. It will make it easier for them to relate to your brand.
Some ways to do that are to introduce members of your team, show videos with “behind the scenes” glimpses of your staff doing what they do best and taking photos of your team at special events and activities. Also, consider promoting the personal brand of your business owner or a high-level manager to put a face to your organization. Many brand managers find it’s an effective way to facilitate loyalty and trust.
4. Set realistic expectations.
Realize that social media alone can’t grow sales.
Yes, it can help to build your brand reputation, generate awareness and increase visibility of your business. However, many other areas of your company impact customer acquisition and revenue growth.
Examples include the performance of your website, the quality of your products and services, your sales team’s skills and your customer service. You must pay attention to your business as a whole for social media to succeed.
5. Write for your readers.
Focus your content on what will help your audience and write it in a way that they will understand it. Simplifying your content doesn’t mean you have to dumb it down, but you should avoid overly complicated wording and sentence structure.
6. Personalize your outreach.
Customers expect that brands will tailor deals and discounts to their unique interests and needs. Consider embracing the potential of targeted advertising and retargeting campaigns on social media to cater to the demand for individualized content and offers.
The don’ts:
1. Don’t engage with haters, trolls, and other negative influences online.
Battling them is—and always will be—a lost cause. If you do, you’ll waste time, energy and creativity that you could be using to build your brand and serve your customers.
2. Don’t try to be everywhere and do everything.
Not every social media platform will deliver results for your business. By trying to maintain too many channels, you’ll become overwhelmed and dilute your effectiveness on those that matter most. Stay active only on the accounts that give you the best return on your time and effort.
3. Don’t post without proofreading.
If you publish posts with careless grammar and misspellings, it will reflect poorly on your brand. Before making posts live, review what you wrote and fix mistakes. Review the content again after you publish it because sometimes sneaky errors can slip by, despite initial proofreading efforts.
4. Don’t ignore your followers’ questions, comments and messages.
Ignoring your audience is the fast track to creating hard feelings, missing opportunities and damaging your brand. Keep tabs on activity on your social media accounts and respond promptly to your followers.
5. Don’t use AI as a substitute for human interaction.
Marketing automation saves time, but never use it as a replacement for person-to-person communication on social media. Your followers expect to develop a relationship with your brand, which can only be done if you’re genuinely engaged with them.
6. Don’t dwell too much on your competition.
Watching your competition is essential, but more critical to your success is developing your business and delivering excellent service to your customers. Nurture your brand’s unique strengths and capabilities rather than trying to be a carbon copy of another company.
Source : https://www.socialmediatoday.com/news/social-media-dos-and-donts-for-2019/548657/
