At Inflowing, we have vast amounts of experience in social media marketing, helping to grow engagement and impressions for B2B companies. We strongly believe in adaptation and collaboration, which we believe are key to finding success not only on social media, but digital marketing as a whole. Analytics will show what posts are performing best, so it’s important to use this and adapt your content to ensure it stays competitive with the best chances of making an impact. Similarly, collaboration and sharing ideas eliminates the risk of tunnel vision and opens up opportunities for new and exciting solutions.
Over the years, we’ve been able to identify various dos and don’ts in social media marketing, and now we plan our strategies accordingly. Here we discuss the various concepts and techniques that work well, and some to avoid entirely.
Do: Chat & Engage
When looking at the dos and don’ts of social media marketing, perhaps the first standout DO is the direct accessibility you have to potential customers. Interacting with users is a great way of building relationships and trust in your brand. If someone replies to your Tweet, or comments on your LinkedIn post, start up a conversation. Answer their questions, ask your own and create honest discussion. This will help users get a feel for your brand personality and can encourage them to look further into the products and services you provide. Including links in your messages and replies that take the users to offers or pages on your website can lead to intentful click-throughs, therefore potentially generating leads. Furthermore, if different users see your conversations with others, it may give them confidence about who they are possibly going to be purchasing from.
Don’t: Overwhelm
The last thing people want on social media is constant posts, spamming as much as possible to get impressions. If somebody’s timeline is filled with only your content, chances are they’ll be turned off and more inclined to unfollow. It’s about only posting when needed or if there is value to be given. A few examples may be when a new sale or offer begins, reminders of how long until a promotion ends or any new blog articles that have been posted on your website. As with all digital marketing channels, it’s about quality not quantity.
Do: Stay Consistent
Your social media channels are a place where your brand identity is highly visible, so it’s good practice to be consistent with it. From a design perspective, having imagery, logos and colours that match your logo, website and any other channels. You could even develop profile and header templates for staff working in the business; this creates uniform and easy to identify branding. As well as being consistent visually, having consistent messaging and personality is important too. If multiple people are admin for a particular social media channel, make sure they’re both on the same page with the messaging and personality of the company. Conflicting tones and styles can be confusing and negatively impact the brand identity.
Don’t: Be Boring
Most people use social media for entertainment. While it can be informative and great for communicating and networking with others, it’s often used by people who want a distraction or perhaps a break from their daily routine. Therefore the content being posted should recognise this and avoid being boring to your audience. Light-hearted photos, memes and fun scenario-based questions are all great ways of joining in providing some entertainment as well as the actual goal of the content, whether it’s creating engagement, gaining followers or encouraging click-throughs.
Do: Plan Ahead
Content plans are a staple for digital marketing. Without them, campaigns would quickly become disorganised and confusing. Creating a plan can ensure that content is posted consistently in terms of timing, but also at higher quality. Researching popular trends in social media can be excellent for tailoring content to fit them and grow impressions. Furthermore, planning ahead can help to reach your specific target audience using various analytics tools. Of course, plans don’t need to remain unchanged from the beginning. We previously mentioned the importance of adaptation, and its critical for content plans. If certain topics or style of posts aren’t working, adapt the upcoming posts to fit a style that will be more successful.
Don’t: Be Fake
Honesty is the best policy. If the messaging isn’t honest, or the replies to users feel disingenuous, users will know. If someone comments, take the time to reply and offer value in it as well. Avoid simply copy and pasting replies, which may save time, but it won’t feel genuine and can affect brand trust. Users often want to feel like there is another human on the other side of their conversations. Being friendly, honest and welcoming to users who engage with your content is the best way for building trust and generating potential leads.
Conclusion
Social media marketing can be difficult to get right, and it’s often unique for each person and business. One business may require a totally different social media strategy when compared with another, and this makes it exciting but challenging. That being said, there are multiple dos and don’ts of social media marketing that are important to consider. Being genuine, consistent and engaging with strong brand identity and a full content plan will make your social media marketing journey much easier.
About Inflowing
Inflowing is a B2B marketing agency. We help B2B organisations do meaningful things with marketing. Whether that’s getting more leads, more visibility, or supporting their sales teams.
We’re an experienced team of marketers with an incredibly strong background in B2B. To learn more about B2B and improving your marketing, check out our other blogs or get in touch.
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