Your businesses’ digital presence should never be treated different than its actual presence in the ‘’real’’ world. Actually it should be in consistency with the existing image of your brand. What you say, the way you act and everything you share should in all cases be what you would already put on your shop’s window, what you would tell a customer face to face or decorate your company’s cars with.
Would you keep your shop shut for a day or even a month? Would you curse or threaten a rude customer? Would you decorate your company’s car with inappropriate images? Read the following rules, get your customers and future customers to respect you, give your brand the best position in the market and then break them, if you like. :)
Do not be a liar, do not mislead your audience and do not steal your content from other pages or users. Social media is not a tv spot that everything you see is glossy and won’t get an answer. On the other hand, although less expensive, not everything is free for you to use in social media and get away with it.
Say the truth having always in mind that you will have to answer a lot of questions. If you don’t or you will lose in credibility and fans. In case you think truth doesn’t sell so much, advertise which will cost you a lot less than traditional advertising.
Also, try to create or pay for the content you want to use. That way you won’t be in the risk of having someone telling all your fans that you stole his work.
Do not be invisible. Your ‘’job’’ in social media is not just to be there, it is to talk, answer and connect with your customers or future customers. You can’t neglect to answer questions and in fact, you should do it really fast too, because if you are late then nobody will see your answer plus everyone will stay with the impression that you are not there. If you have chosen to be in social media then you should really be there or it may harm your business to just keep a presence.
Do not spam other people or their pages / walls. You are in social media in order to reach the biggest possible audiences but by ‘’reach’’ we do not mean one by one. Do not try to communicate with each and every one that presses ‘’like’’ or ‘’follow’’ to your digital business pages. Do not post on their walls, do not tag them without asking, do not send them emails and do not flood them with promotional messages. Do that and you will be blocked, disliked, considered as spammer or even reported risking to lose your page. You may contact your fans and followers once or even twice a year for greetings but spamming can and will destroy the prestige of your brand and how your fans see you.
Do not only self-promote. Social networks for businesses are clearly a marketing tool and a very good one. Of course you are here to promote and you can do it as long as you don’t do only promoting. People will be more positive to your promotions if you also provide them with interesting, sharable, entertaining or informative content. If users wanted to see ads they would watch tv. Remember that it was their choice to connect with you and this can very well change the minute you start bothering them or interfering to their newsfeeds with irrelevant or boring content.
The worst thing that can happen to you – and what most page owners don’t know - is fans start ignoring you. With just a click you will never again appear in their newsfeeds. Your stats will remain the same but your posts will start to get no interactivity, no views, no likes and no shares or comments. And you won’t know why this is happening since your fan’s number is the same. It is so bad that it is almost irreversible.
Bottom line, online, your brand’s page in social media has nothing to do with the person that manages it. It is a whole different entity than a person and although it should remain true and human, it should also keep its tone, visual identity, values and most of all, as the ancient Greece recipe goes ‘’Pan Metron Ariston’’ or in rough translation keep ‘’all good things in moderation’’.
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