Social Media Guidelines

Do’s and Don’ts for using Social Media in Business.

The source article by Kevan Lee contains a lot of valuable information, but for those of you looking for a “getting started” set of guidelines this is a very well written list!!

Social Media Guidelines and Rules for Success

For all social networks

  1. Share several times a day, but space out your posts every few hours.
  2. Respond to all comments as quickly as you can.
  3. Know the art of the hashtag. 1 hashtag is fine. 10 hashtags are not.
  4. Always keep the 80/20 rule! Entertain and inform your audience first, sell to them second.
  5. Use first person plural when talking about your company brand (We, Us).

For Twitter

  1. Don’t automatically direct message people that follow you.
  2. Provide more context in your tweets with Twitter’s 140 character update.
  3. Don’t hijack another company’s hashtag.
  4. Don’t buy followers.
  5. Don’t stuff your tweets with keywords.

For Facebook

  1. Don’t Like your own post.
  2. Don’t post or tag photos of fans, customers, or employees without permission.
  3. Don’t tag people or pages that aren’t relevant to your post.
  4. Don’t ask for Likes, Comments, or Shares.

LinkedIn

  1. Personalize your connection requests. Tell them WHY you’re connecting.
  2. Once connected, send a “welcome” message.
  3. Don’t join groups and immediately start selling yourself.
  4. Don’t ignore the more professional tone of the network.

Google+

  1. Always +mention users when commenting on their posts.
  2. When sharing a post, always add your own commentary to it first.
  3. Share to Circles to target your content.
  4. Use Google+ formatting for your text—bold, italics, and strikethrough.

Pinterest

  1. Don’t neglect to provide good descriptions for your pins.
  2. Always link back to the original source and give credit.
  3. Don’t use images that have nothing to do with your clickthrough content to get more pins or clicks.
  4. Don’t pin just your own material.

Instagram

  1. Don’t ask people to follow you or use hashtags like #tagsforlikes – it’s unprofessional.
  2. Don’t overgram. No one likes their feed filled up with one user.
  3. Use hashtags for your brand appropriately. The golden number of hashtags is 11.

 
This easy to understand list was published in Kevan Lee’s article The 29 Most Common Social Media Rules: Which Ones Are Real? Which Ones Are Breakable? Also referenced in the list, his insightful article on How to Use Hashtags: How Many, Best Ones, and Where to Use Them – A nice article to help you understand the Mysterious Hashtag!!