13 Social Media Tips
Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Youtube…aghghhghghhh!
If you’re like most companies, all this social media stuff is enough to make your head spin.
Should I do it? If so, how? How much? When? What to post? What does it all mean?
Here are some practical tips that can help bring some sanity to your social media strategy:
1. First of all, make sure your other fundamentals of marketing are in place before you allocate significant time and money to social media. I’m talking about your website, your conversion/lead generation, your sales collateral, your PR, your search engine strategies. All of these things are currently more important to getting right than spending too much time posting on Facebook. Get the basics done first.
2. Reserve Twitter accounts for your company name and any other significant brands. You may want to register variations of your company’s name (e.g. Acme, AcmeInc, AcmeCorp, AcmeUSA). On Facebook you are required to create a Fan Page and only after you have 25 people following you are you allowed to set your unique URL to Facebook.com/MyCompany.
IMPORTANT: Once you set your Facebook unique URL, it cannot be changed so choose wisely!
3. If you’re posting on Facebook and Twitter, there is a way to link your Facebook account to your Twitter account. Using this method, every post you make on Facebook will duplicate on Twitter.
IMPORTANT: Remember Twitter has a 140 character limit. Therefore if your Facebook posts are more than 140 characters this will sometimes lead to your Twitter post being automatically shortened to some bizarre-looking URL…not Twitter friendly.
4. Don’t post too often. People will get sick of you and Unfollow you. Then you’ll be all sad.
5. …but don’t forget to post enough so that people remember you’re still alive!
6. Related to #5, nothing’s sadder than a company Facebook page that is empty, without any info or without any Fans. It makes you look bad.
7. Research shows the best times to post are before people start work or after they get off work. We’ve switched our posting times to about 1pm Pacific/4pm Eastern Time, right about when people start losing focus at work and start browsing social media.
8. Do not, do not, do not just post about how great your company and your products are. A guaranteed way to lose Fans is to just post purely promotional stuff. I mean, seriously, who wants to read Facebook posts about how great we all are? Here are some rules of thumb:
-Discounts or limited time promotions are great things to post.
-Ask for feedback or ask questions. Social media is a 2-way medium. Leverage that.
-Post industry news or information you find that is valuable to your Fans.
9. How much is too much? Firecracker posts about 3 times a week. We feel that a Monday, Wednesday, Friday rotation is sufficient. It may vary for you depending in what industry you’re in.
10. When you post links on Facebook, remember you can edit the title and description of the post. Do so and don’t leave it as the default. Crop that description to only 3 sentences or so.
11. How long should your post be? Again, recent research shows that 80 characters is the optimal length.
12. Bored of your Facebook/Twitter page? Did you know that, just like a website, you can do some really neat things to jazz it up?
13. LinkedIn is so underrated as a place for B2B companies to start conversations and find leads.
Is your head still spinning? Another option is to outsource your social media to Firecracker. We can help you come up with a strategy and execute it. Then you can show off your Facebook and Twitter pages with pride. And you won’t be sad. That’s a good thing.