The Unwritten Rules of Social Media - part 2

Last time, we learned that the first unwritten rule is about using the right profile picture. Here's number 2:

Unwritten Rule # 2 - How to write updates
Social media is all about communicating and how you write your updates will really depend why you are using the site in the first place.

For personal use
If you are using Facebook, Twitter, Bebo, MySpace etc to keep in touch with family and friends, then pretty much anything goes.

However, do keep in mind that more and more employers are using social media sites to check out prospective employees, so do be careful and try to avoid bad language or compromising photos!

For business
If you are using social media as a business tool, keep at least 80% of your posts about business issues.

Don't overtly sell (there will be more on this in part #3).

It is OK to mention some personal stuff so people get to know you, and your likes/dislikes,. However it is not a good idea to mention lurid details of parties, drunkenness and the like if you want to be known as a serious professional!

Likewise, keep your language clean (i.e don't swear).

Post updates regularly and often so your following get to know and expect to see items from you. It just isn't effective to update 100 things one day and then not touch sites for 6 months...

Leave suitable periods of time between updates and understand that followers on different sites will expect a different frequency of updates. Users on LinkedIn for example tend to expect up to 1 update a day. Twitter followers expect several a day although I always recommend to leave at least an hour between tweets, unless you are engaging in a conversation with someone.

Try not to abbreviate. You will lose followers if you use them too often and people outside your company/industry don't know what they mean.

Add links to things you mention and ALWAYS check links (to make sure they work and to check they are not spam) before forwarding posts.

When re-posting a quote or retweeting on Twitter, give credit to the person who tweeted the information first.

Next time: Unwritten Rule # 3 - Don't sell

A Beginner’s Guide to Social Media

What is Social Media?
Social media is the group name for websites that offer interaction between users.
They include blogs, message boards and sites such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and YouTube.

Why should I bother?
Social Media is a way for people to talk to each other in a way that has never been possible before.

Here are some facts:

• Over 100million videos are viewed every day on YouTube


• Facebook has over 250 million active users


• 3,000,000 messages are sent each day via Twitter


• Over 1,000,000,000 links to blog posts, web links, news stories, photos and notes are shared on Facebook each week.

Even if you think you’ve never used social networking, you probably have by reading a blog or watching a video from a Google search...

How Can Social Media Help My Business?
Social media gives you the opportunity to build your brand. It gives you interaction with your existing clients and potential customers. Most importantly, it gives you a way of talking with them, rather than at them.

It’s like networking, but on-line.

You’ll discover new ways to promote your business and the opportunity to increase your ranking on Google and other search engines. It can help you with PR, customer service, loyalty-building, collaboration, networking, thought-leadership and customer acquisition.

The Rules1. Listen
Just listen and observe. Research who is out there and who you want to reach. Join sites you are interested in but sit on your hands and resist the urge to start straight away. Good news travels fast... bad news (or comments) travel even faster!

2. Plan
Decide how you are going to use Social Media and work out the time and resources you will plough into it. If you need help, ask for it...

3. Engage
Think conversation not sales pitch. Even on the internet, people buy from people. Let your prospective clients get to know you and your thoughts and don’t start shouting your sales pitch as it just won’t work.

4. Measure & Review
Like all marketing, you need to know it is giving you a return on investment. Analyse website traffic, enquiries etc to see what works and don’t assume that social media will be the answer to everything!

Summary
Social media is here to stay, but without a plan of how we are trying to use it within our marketing mix, it is easy to waste our time and money. However, by putting together a clear plan of who we are trying to target, with which medium and defined messages can help you to interact with clients and potential customers to strengthen your brand and grow your business.

Many businesses I know have begun their social media experience by 'dipping a toe in the water'. And with training in how to plan their use of the different sites appropriate to their business (and in some cases, help writing blogs and posts) have grown its use so that it is now an integral part of their marketing.

If you would like any further advice, do give me a call for a no-obligation chat about using social media in your business - I look forward to hearing from you!

Hannah

Hannah Sookias
Sookias Media  Tel: 01283 808460 www.sookiasmedia.com
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