Social media is a growing green monster that seemed to crawl out of the ocean to save us after the market left us sad, cold, and in danger. It’s probably not exactly like that, but social media has done its part to offer a new field of jobs and businesses fledging opportunities left and right these days.
There are already many instances (many of them famous now) of businesses and even government agencies perpetrating social media goof-ups. Rather than fall into the same ploys, here are five tips to keep you from looking like a social media oaf.
Mailing List Mania
If you’re an avid podcast fan (I definitely fall into this category) then you’ve probably heard about the way marketing gurus are tapping into their fanbase with mailing list software. But how do you go from getting messages thrown in the trash to being read, or better yet have people checking their inboxes in anticipation?
Maybe the latter is a bit difficult to attain depending on your niche, perhaps you sell plumbing equipment after all. Still, here are a few simple rules to get you through.
DON’T
- Fill your emails with product listings
- Send sporadic, irregular message blasts like a psychic Mothra
- Never buy random emails or email lists
- Fill the message body with article headlines and links
DO
- Be personable
- Communicate regularly
- Use clever ways to convince potential readers to opt-in
- Use a management software to factor your readership effectively
Also, check out these simple rules as well for further do’s.
Google+
Google plus is one of the easiest ways to make sure the people pulling the strings behind the scenes notice your business… Google themselves. While there are many platforms available for social media, G+ is the best way to get close to Google and make way for a listing on Google Maps. By not signing up for this profile you’re doing a major disservice to your media campaign.
After registration, a postcard with a code will be sent to the business address to verify the location. After which you’ll notice a specific local listing for your business in the G+ profile helping garner traction on local rankings.
Relevance First
Make posts and tweets are relevant to your target audience. If you’re a dog sitting company the last thing you should be doing is commenting on politics. If you’ve got a steady following you should talk about lost dogs in the area, and give back to the community in a positive way. Soon you’ll be a local place of information and trust will begin to build amongst even the most casual of followers.
Make sure that the topic you’re talking about is in good taste. Bud Light recently came under fire for using a very questionable hash tag in a recent ad. Don’t make that mistake. Brands can lose trust much quicker than they can build it.
Transparency
Build it and they will come. Build it wrong and they will single you out and complain. Although there’s no perfect way to run a business, it is important that you do it correctly. In this day and age, everything form twitter to sites like Glassdoor.com allow employees free reign to call-out management for their sometimes small mistakes.
The best way to handle these incidents is directly. Offer feedback and apologize when wrong. The best kind of PR is allowing customers and potential employees see that you intend on righting the wrongs.
Ad Space
Facebook allows for users to purchase ad space in a variety of ways, but perhaps instead of spending money you might be better off investing time instead. What a good entrepreneur would do is find groups, forums, or chats about the field and begin introducing themselves and eventually becoming a figurehead in the scene. This establishes trust with prospective clients who will remember your advice in the future.
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This guest post was written by Ryan De La Rosa. Ryan is a budding writer commenting on the state of the Internet. For more Madden-esque commentary follow him on Twitter @fernandmoss. If you’d also like to contribute a guest post, click here.
