5 Critical Social Media Guidelines for Your Brand

 

“If you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all.”

What not to do on social media, exhibit A:

5-SM-Guidelines-A

Don’t make light of tragedies for self promotion…on social media, or otherwise. Ever.
What not to do on social media, exhibit B:

5-SM-Guidelines-B

Even worse than the above is trying to act sincere while slipping in a promotional hashtag.
What not to do on social media, exhibit C:

5-SM-Guidelines-C

Disrespecting your own customers… seems pretty self explanatory.

There are plenty of wrong ways to do social media as a brand. In fact, we’ve compiled a list of 7 things your brand should stop doing on social media.

But what about the right ways to do social as a brand?

Here are 5 guidelines to social media for brands.

1. Be helpful.

All sales are inherently built on trust.

We trust that Nike hires good manufacturers and uses good materials to produce quality shoes. So we buy Nikes.

Trust is built not by announcing your latest product line, but in helping your potential customer. Don’t use your social media for endless self-promotion. Use it to foster a relationship and earn trust by helping your target market.

What do they need? What are their interests? How can I help them today, regardless of if it’s a direct sale to me or not?

2. Be personable.

There’s nothing worse than boring and generic social media. Take the time to develop your brand voice with a tone that captivates. Or just be Taco Bell and occasionally say funny stuff.

3. Don’t say anything online that you wouldn’t say to someone’s face.

Red Medicine (above) would be the first to tell you that projecting frustrations via social media is never a good choice. It became a national headline and buried the restaurant in bad Yelp reviews.

4. Conversation wins.

Company updates aren’t social media. They’re just media, and they’re often boring and irrelevant to your followers.

Be social. At reply. Comment back. Converse with competitors. In the end, ask yourself, who would want to be friends with someone that only talks “at” you?

5. Quality content rises to the top.

Yes you can newshack, like our friend Kenneth Cole (above), or try to get retweeted based on shock value. However, do so at your own risk.

The better (and safer) way to win fans and get the right kind of attention is to simply consistently create quality content.

There are a handful of brands out there that seem to play according to these guidelines. Of which, here are a couple of our favorites:

Taco Bell is personable and conversational and is generally always doing things online worth reading.

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Taco Bell’s social media voice is full of humor and is truly entertaining. This may or may not be the voice for your brand, but the key is that they are consistently engaging with their audience and providing quality content.

Buffer App posts well thought out, well researched, and well documented content that doesn’t necessarily directly promote their brand. Their content is published to simply help their target market, and therefore, create brand advocates and fans. (They also get an average rate of 2000+ shares per article)

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What are some of your favorite company social profiles?

 

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