Social media can effectively make or break your business. Just as fast as witty content or hilarious commentary can skyrocket your brand into the viral atmosphere, so can awful customer service or tone deaf sharing. That’s why it’s important to understand that social media is essentially an avatar for your business, knowing how to convey its unique personality and act accordingly is key! It’s a delicate balance of sharing the right things, developing relevant content and effectively communicating with consumers both current and potential.
While there are many, many resources out there telling you what your business should be doing online, here are a few things your business should never be do.
1) Don’t Take The Bait
We’ve all seen them on Yelp, Twitter and pretty much every social platform where one can voice their opinion. Some people really just like to complain. So when someone posts a nasty or hostile comment regarding your brand, the knee jerk reaction is to call them out and defend your good name.
Regardless of whether their comment is legitimate, it’s important to take the high road. Just like your Mom always said, “be the bigger person.” Responding negatively to reviews and comments will only reflect poorly on your brand.
Use the opportunity to showcase how effectively you can handle the haters and calmly address their grievances. Lashing out and putting the commenter in their place will only make you look bad – no matter how ludicrous the comment.
2) Don’t Delete Negative Comments And Reviews
Just as it’s important to not take the bait and avoid nasty online confrontation, it’s also important to not simply delete negative comments and reviews. Do you really expect people to believe your 10 year old business only has 5-star glowing reviews? No, and that’s okay.
It’s important for people (aka potential customers) to see how your business handles negativity. So when someone posts that your restaurant is the ‘worst ever’ because you use Maraschino cherries over brandied ones, take a deep breath, acknowledge their claim and say you’ll take their suggestion into consideration. Simple as that!
You know this person is ridiculous and we know this person is ridiculous. Don’t delete the negativity, leave it up and live your truth.
3) Don’t Constantly Promote Yourself
As I mentioned earlier, it’s important to keep your content on brand so that you’re effectively portraying the personality of your business. You want to be sharing your business’s latest and greatest but you also have to keep in mind that no one wants to be sold to all the time.
If you’re constantly pushing your product or service, people are going to get bored. It’s okay to have fun with your content and share things that are on-brand with your company or relevant to your business. Sharing news, stories or photos relevant to your target audience is a great way to up your engagement and garner legitimacy online.
4) Don’t Post Controversial Content
While it’s absolutely important to have fun with your social media presence, there are some parameters. Posting a cute animal photo as a ‘TGIF’ has never maimed anyone’s credibility, but aimlessly posting irrelevant ‘top ten’ lists or opinionated op-ed’s may just do the trick. Your business and your personal social presence are two different things.
Don’t assume that your target audience is totally like-minded and will find these gratuitous posts hilarious or interesting. Even though you spent all morning cracking up over a list of celebrities who look like animals, if it has no correlation with your area of business it may be best to not click the ‘share’ button. Don’t let yourself become any one of these people. Stay on brand and stay relevant (in a fun way.)
5) Don’t Clog the Feed
Posting consistently is good social media strategy 101. However, people may have differing opinions on what ‘consistently’ actually means. Posting every day is a good rule of thumb to keep your business relevant and engaged with your audience. Alas, there can be too much of a good thing.
An even better rule of thumb is to try and limit your posting to one or two posts a day. We all have that friend of family member who posts too much, shares too often and this often leads us to unfollow their updates or even unfriend. The same goes for businesses, if you clog the feed you’re going to turn off and overwhelm your audience. Sometimes less is more!
6) Don’t Automate Everything
The advent of automated publishing platforms has been a godsend for businesses and agencies alike. However, the luxury of being able to ‘set it and forget it’ a month or even more in advance is both a blessing and a curse. Having your content solely automated has the tendency to come across as cold and even tone deaf while ensuring that you’re engaging in real time and creating additional ad hoc content will breathe life into your business’s personality.
Being on top of trending topics and hashtags is a powerful tool in proving your relevancy to your target audience since automated responses and posting can make even some of the biggest and most respected companies in the world look like fools. Don’t believe us? Check out some of these horror stories. Remember, social media is just that – social.
7) Don’t Be A Negative Nancy
A good way to determine how well your content is going to perform is whether it’s inherently positive or negative. Scrolling through your feed you’re more likely to engage with posts are positively oriented. Even if the content is relevant to your business or ideal demographic, try to avoid sharing content that’s negative, mean or morbidly oriented. Stay positive and ignite conversation based on happy, positive matters!
While all of these are excellent guidelines to keep in mind, there is no concrete right way to handle your social media. No one knows your business and ideal audience better than you do! Need help finding your voice and curating your content? Leave it to us! Learn more about how we can help you, here.
