Social Marketing Strategies & Etiquette for Small Business

These tips are for the small business owners who aren’t “computer people” but have limited resources. If you are your own social media manager, you need to create a social media strategy before you do anything else.

You need to know:

• What you will post
• What you will not post
• Who should be able to post to your page
• When you should post (and how often)
• How you will get fans or followers
• How you will keep followers interested
• How you will use social media to help your business grow, or what goals you hope to accomplish

Of course, you’re probably sick of lists. Everybody is telling you what you should and should not do. It’s really up to you. It’s your brand, your voice, your message. The important thing is to avoid the most common mistakes. Of all the rules that you can break, there are some “Social Media Etiquette” that should never be broken.

1. Your social media account is not all about you / your business
2. Nobody will ever “Like” you just because you asked them. Nobody will ever “Like” you if you sent spammy solicitations.
3. Offering an incentive to “Like” you probably won’t have the sustainable results you hope for.
4. If you do hire a social media manager, be smart about it. Don’t choose somebody like your niece “because she knows how to Twitter”. Instead, choose somebody who gets reputation management and can be trusted to maintain a positive brand identity.
5. Social media is a place to talk to—and listen to—your core audience. You can’t highlight the positive and ignore the negative, this will backfire.

Don’t be that guy who spams fans with self-serving updates all the time. Find out what your goals are, and create a strategy that will help you achieve those goals without breaking the most important rules about social media etiquette.