Social Media Do’s and Don’ts: A Comprehensive Guide

Social media is used by 3.8 billion people around the globe and We Are Social statistics show that 89 percent use social networking apps. In January 2020, YouTube had two billion users, Facebook had 1.95 billion, Instagram had 928.5 million, and LinkedIn had 663.3 million.

These numbers point not only to the role social media platforms play in marketing, but also to the importance of knowing how these platforms differ from each other and what this means in the context of a user profile and published content.

Social media dos and don’ts are vital when using social media, especially when making use of multiple platforms. Understanding why a do on Facebook is a don’t on LinkedIn will help you make use of these platforms to promote your brand or product, reach target audiences, and increase sales.

Do Your Homework

The user statistics mentioned above give us an idea of the importance of social media but a question can be raised on why some platforms have more users than others. Why does Instagram have more users than LinkedIn?

One of the reasons for this is that no two networks or platforms are alike. While LinkedIn is used for professional networking, Instagram is used for photography, Twitter is used for microblogging, and Snapchat is used for multimedia messaging. Facebook has managed to become a combination of all of these, although the relationship with your friends on Facebook differs from your connections on LinkedIn or your followers on Twitter.

Knowing the different networks and having an understanding of how they work will give you an idea of the networks you should maintain a profile on and the networks you should prioritise. It isn’t possible to post regularly on five different networks, unless you repeat content, so it’s vital that you prioritise so that you know where to post first or more regularly and where different content should be published.

When using social media platforms, make sure you maintain different accounts for personal use and business use. If people looking for information on your start-up have to wade through posts about your pet or children, it may put off potential customers.

Complete and Update Profiles

One of the main dos of social media is maintaining complete and updated profiles. Incomplete profiles, especially on networks like LinkedIn, may put off fellow professionals from connecting with you and a rarely updated Instagram account will make people reluctant to follow you.

While maintain complete and up-to-date profiles is important, don’t make it all about you. People don’t want everything to be about one person and you can share links to other websites as long as they are relevant, accurate, and of use to your audience.

Interact With Your Audience

In marketing, your connections, friends, and followers are all an audience that you present your thoughts, ideas, and brand or product to. Instead of merely publishing your content, however, you need to interact with your audience.

Social media isn’t about a monologue but a dialogue. Interacting and maintaining conversations with your audience is more important than merely posting something. However, it’s also important that you don’t make it a sales pitch. Marketing your brand or product is important but your audience won’t respond positively if it feels like your every post is an attempt to sell them something.

Post Regularly

While interaction with your audience is important, a social media do that is of importance is posting regularly. If you take a network like Twitter, your feed changes every minute. The fast-paced nature of social media is one you need to make use of by posting regularly.

However, you should make sure to post accurate content that is suited for the platform. You may want to tell your audience about your latest beach holiday, but those pictures are more suited for Instagram than LinkedIn.

Ensure correct spelling and grammar in your posts and don’t spam your audience with posts.

Credit and Repetition

Content is not always original and you may use images, statistics, or quotes from various sources. When you do, always give credit to the original source.

While images, quotes, and articles are a great way to keep your profile updated, be sure to not beg for shares and likes or repeat the same content over and over again. In addition to this, avoid posting the same content across multiple platforms. Misusing platforms and their features is also a big don’t. For instance, Instagram accommodates multiple hashtags but Facebook and Twitter don’t.