{"id":10463,"date":"2011-09-08T17:46:25","date_gmt":"2011-09-08T21:46:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.franchisegator.com\/articles\/?p=10463"},"modified":"2022-03-03T15:12:34","modified_gmt":"2022-03-03T20:12:34","slug":"do-donts-social-networking-for-small-business-10509","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.franchisegator.com\/articles\/do-donts-social-networking-for-small-business-10509\/","title":{"rendered":"The Do&#8217;s and Dont&#8217;s of Social Networking for Your Small Business"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While there<br \/>\n are LOTS of articles and blog posts out on the web all about the importance of<br \/>\n social networking, and the &#8216;how-to&#8217; of social networking, it can become come<br \/>\n quite overwhelming to grasp exactly what to do; but perhaps even more<br \/>\n importantly, what NOT to do.&nbsp; Hopefully<br \/>\n this post will help you navigate your way through the maze of social networking<br \/>\n intricacies in order for you to get the most out of using social media for your small business.<\/p>\n<h2>Social Media Do&#8217;s<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Start<br \/>\n with one platform, establish a plan for using it, and actively participate on<br \/>\n it before moving on to another. <\/strong>When you finally decide to take the leap<br \/>\n and start using social media for your business, it can be tempting to set up a<br \/>\n Facebook Page then quickly move on to set up your Twitter account, LinkedIn<br \/>\n Company Page, etc. &#8211; only to have 6 months elapse before it occurs to you that<br \/>\n after the initial set ups, you&#8217;ve neglected your sites. The quantity of social<br \/>\n networking sites on which you have a profile is not nearly as important as the<br \/>\n quality of the content, interactions, and elbow grease that you invest in one<br \/>\n particular platform. Setting up social media profiles only to let them lay<br \/>\n dormant can be more detrimental to your business than having no presence at<br \/>\n all.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Fill out<br \/>\n all profiles such that no fields are left blank. <\/strong>&nbsp;As was noted above, when creating profiles on<br \/>\n social networking sites, quality is much more important than quantity. Resist<br \/>\n the temptation to fill out your business name, upload a logo and move on to the<br \/>\n next site. Make sure you are utilizing all available fields to enter as much<br \/>\n information about your business as possible. Not only do complete profiles help<br \/>\n your target audience learn more about your business, but on many of the<br \/>\n platforms, the words within your profile are searchable by the search engines;<br \/>\n such that complete profiles laden with keywords, can increase the likelihood of<br \/>\n your business being found on the web.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Learn how<br \/>\n to use a social media site before you jump in.<\/strong> Much like you wouldn&#8217;t look<br \/>\n at your business accounting and say, &quot;I&#8217;ll just give it a whirl,&quot; using social<br \/>\n media sites incorrectly could damage your business. There are many ways to<br \/>\n learn how to use a social media platform &#8211; books, blogs, courses, webinars,<br \/>\n etc. &#8211; but one of the easiest things to do is spend some time watching and<br \/>\n listening to what other businesses are doing. For example, find Facebook<br \/>\n Business Pages where there are conversations occurring &#8211; people are &#8216;liking&#8217;<br \/>\n posts and commenting, then study their posting style. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2>Social Media Don&#8217;ts<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Don&#8217;t<br \/>\n expect to set up your social media accounts and have the leads come pouring in.<\/strong>A social media marketing program is not a &quot;set and forget&quot; type operation &#8211;<br \/>\n it takes time, maintenance, and dedication to establish trust, generate<br \/>\n relationships, and start building a community around your brand. Think about<br \/>\n using social media for your business in the same way that one makes a lifestyle<br \/>\n change when it comes to losing weight. In order to lose weight and keep it off,<br \/>\n you need to change the way you eat and exercise so that you can maintain a<br \/>\n healthy lifestyle &#8211; and though the results may not be drastic and immediate,<br \/>\n you have a much better chance of achieving long lasting results; it&#8217;s the same<br \/>\n way with social media. When you start using social media, you are making a<br \/>\n change to the way you&#8217;ve always approached marketing in the past &#8211; you are<br \/>\n establishing a new and improved way in which you will communicate with your<br \/>\n customers and prospects &#8211; a way that requires attention and nurturing in order<br \/>\n to have a much longer, lasting impact on your business.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Don&#8217;t<br \/>\n turn your social media channels into digital billboards. <\/strong>People are<br \/>\n flocking to social media sites for information and dialogue. If all of your<br \/>\n posts consist of broadcasting your product and service offerings and telling<br \/>\n everyone how wonderful you think your business is &#8211; you will quickly alienate<br \/>\n your target audience. People connect with business on social media sites for a<br \/>\n wide range of reasons &#8211; none of those reasons however, have to do with reading<br \/>\n marketing messages all day. Put yourself in the shoes of your target audience<br \/>\n and figure out how you can add value to their day with your posts. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>Don&#8217;t<br \/>\n forget that social media is constantly changing. <\/strong>One of the hardest parts<br \/>\n of using social media marketing for your business is keeping up with the<br \/>\n ever-changing trends. Unfortunately, what works and is deemed acceptable by<br \/>\n users one day, could be much different, and perhaps even frowned upon by users<br \/>\n the next. It is critical when utilizing social media that you also keep up with<br \/>\n how social media is growing and evolving. You can keep up with trends in social<br \/>\n media, by subscribing to social media blogs, joining social media groups on<br \/>\n sites such as LinkedIn, following along with social media Facebook Pages, etc., &#8211; essentially, as redundant as it sounds, you can use<br \/>\n social media to keep up to date with social media. <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong><span>Written by AK Stout<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>\n AK Stout is the Owner of Saying It Social, LLC. AK has been working with<br \/>\n  social media for the past 6 years, having been amongst the first group<br \/>\n of people introduced to Facebook.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While there are LOTS of articles and blog posts out on the web all about the importance of social networking, and the &#8216;how-to&#8217; of social networking, it can become come quite overwhelming to grasp exactly what to do; but perhaps even more importantly, what NOT to do.&nbsp; Hopefully this post will help you navigate your <a href=\"https:\/\/www.franchisegator.com\/articles\/do-donts-social-networking-for-small-business-10509\/\" class=\"more-link\">&#8230;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">  The Do&#8217;s and Dont&#8217;s of Social Networking for Your Small Business<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":10464,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-editorial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v28.1 - 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