40 Social Media Best Practices For Your Marketing Efforts

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Marketing you business with social media is a very useful way to get exposure and target the right groups of people providing that you do it the right way.

Whether or not you are marketing for lavender products or launching a social media campaign for an online bridal company or a home business website, there are best practices to follow in order to succeed.

So what are they?

1. Follow my 4 Early Social Media Strategies post. It offers good insight before and when starting your social media campaign for your business.
2. Be active in at least 3 Social Media Networks. If you can handle more go ahead otherwise read point 39.

Twitter

1. Build Your Twitter List and follow those who are relevant to your business, in other words… Targeted Followers.
2. Follow your followers back but choose the right people to follow.
3. Post relevant content on Twitter for your followers. Don’t post about your neighbour’s new house or your iPod’s song list. Be A CONTRIBUTOR! (read point 38)
4. Find the Right Time to Tweet. Check out Whentotweet to find out the best time to tweet to your followers. Don’t let them disappear into “Twitterspace” without reaching your followers.
5. Stop Spamming “Twitterspace” with irrelevant links. Things like “Make $1000 in one night using XYZ program http://bit.ly/etc…” are useless.
6. Get SocialOomph to automate your messages when someone follows you. Make sure they are not too self promotional. A nice message like “thx for following me. Looking fwd to hear from u” is one example. If you think you can write a better message than that, be my guest.
7. When someone follows you on Twitter, follow up with them, join in their conversations.
8. Retweet your followers’ tweets. Reciprocating is the key to starting a relationship.
9. You can self promote..WHAT?? YES you can providing that you do it the right way, i.e your very own relevant useful content to your followers.
10. Be consistent with your tweets but bearing in mind of the timing of your tweets as in point 4.
11. Find questions to answer on Twitter relevant to your business. A good way to do this is to filter them using this command “-filter:links keyword”(courtesy of Kristi Hines of Kikolani). There is a much higher chance of ppl thanking and following you if you do this.

Facebook

1. Set up a fan page. Learn how to design a fantastic fan page using this “9 Ways to Enhance Your Facebook Fan Page”.
2. Add friends with people in your business. Introduce them to your fan page. Encourage them to be a fan but don’t be pushy.
3. Spread the word about your fan page on your business. Be it word of mouth, blogs, websites, advertisements, leaflets or flyers; whatever works for you.
4. Link to your personal Facebook profile.
5. Link to your blog/website.
6. Consider Facebook Ads for your business.
7. Connect your fan page to Twitter.
8. Organize Contests, Coupon giveaways, Prizes On Your Facebook Page.
9. Regularly Update Your fan page.
10. Start A Facebook Group. Check this blog post about the new Facebook Group feature (totally revamped!)

LinkedIn

1. Join LinkedIn and setup a group or join a group and be active in their discussions. Again… be a CONTRIBUTOR! (read point 38)
2. Find people in LinkedIn to network with. If Facebook or Twitter does not work with you, there is a good chance LinkedIn will.

Other Social Media Best Practices

1. Consider other social sites like MyBlogLog, FriendFeed or Yahoo Groups.
2. Create a blog or if you have a blog, update it regularly.
3. Use this 9 Awesome Ways To Promote Your Blog Post and then tell your customers/business partners about your blog.
4. Look for ways to contribute, even when it’s not directly related to your company/product.
5. Don’t only try to build relationships with your customers, expand your influence beyond your social circle once you are more established otherwise read point 4.
6. Link all your social networks together and link it back to your blog/website as mentioned for Facebook in point 17 and 18.
7. Do A Social Media Press Release
8. Add an emotional element to social media. An emotional connection adds a deeper human connection.
9. Consider also capturing great testimonials from customers,
10. Add touching stories from employees, a heart-to-heart message from your director or manager and publish it on social media networks.
11. Spread good content around on social media networks. Vote, Digg, Tweet, Share, Stumble etc you name it…
12. Consider Lijit, track down your customers by joining them and participate in their communities.
13. Be a good listener and respond genuinely. It is not just about contributing.
14. Remember to add quality people to your social media lists, NOT quantity.
15. Last but not least, hire a Social Media Consultant if things get too overwhelming J

Do you still have anything more to add to this list? Let me know. I’m all ears.

Before you go, I’d like to share with you this ebook on Social Media. See the link below.

“What is Social Media?” by Antony Mayfield of iCrossing

Related articles on Social Media

• What do Social Media Managers do? Part 1
• How Local Telcos Are (Not) Using Social Media
• A Simple Framework to Measure the Effectiveness of Social Media Programs

Tagged as: business tips, marketing tips, social media, social media marketing tips, social media tips