What is social media mostly used for?
If you are from this era then you definitely know about social media. The rage of social media is taking over everyone nowadays. But do you just think it is all about just Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook? Then let me tell you that there is certainly a lot more to the story than you know.
The uses of social media are certainly on the rise. From individuals, entrepreneurs, and celebrities to startups, small business and big enterprises, social media affect everyone and in this post, we are going to discuss what are some important rules for social media.
No marketing strategy these days can be considered complete without an effective plan for Social Media. No matter what kind of business you do, what products you sell, what is its size and at which part of the world you are. You can’t overlook the power of social media especially when most of your target audience (potential customer base) uses these websites regularly and religiously. Social media websites like twitter and facebook experienced a staggering growth in 2009. To leverage the enormous power of social media, more and more businesses have started jumping into the social media bandwagon. Here in this article we’ll highlight the six important rules you should follow while participating in social media websites.
Be Original –
This is the first and the most important rule in the social media world. Don’t create accounts with fake username or put a fake photo on your profile and fill your bio with fake claims and inanities. Be honest about what you do and who you are.
Don’t Over-promote –
Of course you’ve joined social media websites to promote your business but don’t over-promote it. It’s very important to maintain a balance between the promotional content and informational content. While promoting your stuff, make sure that it is of high quality. Don’t promote the subpar stuff else you would be ignored and shunned from the community.
Participate in Conversations –
Social media is not a broadcast media. So don’t use it for the sole purpose of making announcements about your new products, discount coupons and press releases because nobody is interested in them. It’s a platform to do conversations and MEANINGFUL conversations with others (target audience). Don’t be shy (and leave your ego behind) and start participating in conversations now.
Think before you speak –
Okay. You might have read “Listen first and then speak” many times. But there is one more thing you should do after listening and before speaking and that is THINKING. Whatever you say on social networks, not only it gets read by your community but it also gets permanently stored in the archives of social media websites and indexes of search engines which means that they are easily accessible to your competitors, employees, customers, investors and everyone you can imagine about. So think twice before hitting the button for updating your status on Facebook.
Promote others to get promoted –
You are not the only one who is hungry for recognition and fame. Everybody likes it and wants it. Help others to get the recognition they deserve (of course there is no need to promote the crap content of others in hope that he will do the same in exchange) and you will start getting recognition of your own. Promoting contents of others will benefit you in three major ways-
Now you’ve more good content to promote, which means now you can be more active in the community.
Community members will start recognizing you as a genuine and a generous guy who always promotes high quality content of others. So you easily build lot of credibility without putting any efforts to generate content.
You put yourself on the radar of the guy whose content you are promoting. Now he would be more than happy to help you in promoting your own (quality) content.
Consistency and Patience are keys to success –
Don’t expect overnight results or quick success in social media. Building a loyal readership takes a lot of time. So have patience and be consistent in doing what you do. Update your profiles one in a day or few times a week (depending on your schedule) religiously. So that whenever somebody visits your profile he gets the latest information about you and your stuff.
