Social Media Basics Best Practices Guide
(Updated in March 2014)
Introduction to Social Media
Welcome to the world of social media! Although
this isn’t likely a true “welcome” as you’ve probably
had some experience with Facebook, LinkedIn,
Pinterest, or Twitter on either a personal or
professional basis. If you don’t have a clear idea
what the basic concepts of these sites are, this
guide may not answer your questions. You can
find the most basic of information about those
social networks in the Social Media 101 article also
1
contained in the Marketing Toolbox .
Beyond the four services listed above, there are
hundreds of other social media sites. The photo on
the left shows just a few of these diverse, yet
growing social sites. By its nature, social media is
continually changing and evolving, as evidenced by
Facebook recently purchasing WhatsApp, a
somewhat obscure messaging service, for $19
billion in February of 2014 2.
Due to ever changing features and fluid nature of these various social media platforms, this guide will not go
into specifics on how to use the particular channels, but rather will focus on universal best practices for using
social media in general.
Social Media Defined
Social media is defined as:
“forms of electronic communication (as Web sites for social networking and microblogging) through which
users create online communities to share information, ideas, personal messages, and other content (as
videos).” 3
It is important to note that social media is not confined to web sites, Facebook, and blogs, but can also take
the form of viral videos, QR codes, podcasts, mobile “check-ins” at various public locations, “flash mobs”,
landing pages, MeetUp groups, and many others. Social media is constantly evolving, expanding, and
deepening its influence in the average American’s daily life, especially since a Pew Internet & American Life
Project study determined that 90% of Americans now own a mobile device. This mobile revolution means
1
“Social Networking 101: A Beginner’s Guide to Facebook , Twitter, Google+, and LinkedIn”, Eric Griffith, Managing
Editor—Business, PCMag.com, August 1,2011
2
“Wall Street sees sense in Facebook’s $19 billion WhatsApp buy”, Soham Chatterjee & Saqib Iqbal Ahmed,
Reuters/DADO RUVIC, February 20, 2014.
3
Merriam-Webster.com
more people are “always-connected”, more than ever before and utilizing social media networks in new and
exciting ways.
Keys to Successfully Utilizing Social Media
1) Carefully evaluate and define your audience—Knowing the demographics and characteristics of your
target audience is crucial to having success with any social media venture. Keep in mind that your
business is essentially asking your target audience to allow you into a semi-private area of their lives. As
such, your message needs to be relevant and interesting enough to convince them to do so. The more
you define and segment your audience, the more targeted an approach you can have in reaching them.
2) Identify the social networks your target audience uses—Social media channels such as Facebook,
Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn, Instagram, SnapChat, and Pinterest are all extremely popular. As of the
writing of this guide, Facebook is still by far the number one social network. However, be aware that the
web community is a fickle audience and new, niche networks continually arise that can change existing
social networking patterns. In 2008, mySpace was worth $12 billion with over 100 million user accounts.
In 2011, mySpace was virtually dead and was sold for just $35 million 4. However, mySpace has reinvented itself as a music-oriented site and is making a comeback! The important thing to remember is
to take time to find out where your target audiences are and then strategize on how best to reach them.
3) Define your objectives—Social media is known for being tough to evaluate from a success/failure pointof-view, given how quickly this technology changes and the dizzying number of sites and formats. But
you can still set some measurable objectives for your social media efforts. The chart below offers an
example of some social media strategic objectives 5.
4
Wikipedia, MySpace Page, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myspace
5
“Define Your Company’s Social Media Strategic Business Objectives Prior to Making a Significant Investment”,
Steinar Knutsen, President and CEO of New Site Media Group, LLC.
There are also many free software packages and services to help you track social media results towards your
objectives including Hootsuite, Klout, Social Mention, and Addict-o-matic 6.
4) Provide incentives to entice members to join your network(s)—Unless your brand or service has
an innate “hip factor” (ie. Harley-Davidson, Gucci, or Monster Energy) “fans” or “followers” (social media
terms for opted-in consumers) are not going to be flocking to find your social media outlets. Therefore,
you have to offer a compelling reason for customers to agree to receive your posts, tweets, emails, and
other correspondence. Some popular reasons users connect via social media with companies are to win
contests, to access exclusive content, or be informed of special pricing deals and discounts. Essentially,
the key is to determine what will motivate your targeted audience to act upon your request to directly
market to them.
5) Realize social media is NOT a one-sided conversation—Nothing will doom your social media efforts
faster than talking at, not to your audience. Most of you already have a vehicle for explaining your
company, your services, and why people should do business with you: your website. People spend time
on social networks for many reasons; keeping in touch with family and friends, following people they
admire, to be entertained, etc. Enduring a continual stream of commercials from your company is not
one of them. Keep in mind the user granted you the authority to interact with them and they can revoke
it with a simple mouse click. Engage your users with varying types of content, interesting and
informative information, local event opportunities, and open-ended questions and comments that give
your “fans” a chance to express themselves.
6) Don’t panic if you receive negative feedback—The early days of social media provided some
sobering examples of how failing to properly react to negative feedback can backfire (you can see some
of the worst social media disasters here 7). A strategy of “delete and censor” regarding negative
comments has proven to only exacerbate the problem and draw more attention to the issue. The biggest
benefit and danger of social media are one in the same: a user can broadcast his/her opinion or
experience to a wide audience easily and virtually instantly. Instead of ignoring, deleting, or downplaying
a complaint or bad review, reach out to that person and attempt to engage them offline (via email or
phone). This shows other users your willingness to listen and improve, as well as taking the negative
situation out of public discussion.
7) Work to grow your social media user base—Utilize your full complement of marketing resources to
expand your social media footprint. This includes your website, social media channels, email campaigns,
brochures, point-of-sale signage, business cards, truck signage, etc. Create exclusive content and
promotions for social media users that offer an exclusive reward or discount in exchange for an “opt-in”
on social media (ex. trade a “LIKE” on Facebook for a 5% off coupon code). Look for creative ideas and
opportunities by keeping abreast of what the most successful social marketers are doing. Keep in mind
that for every “fan” that you gain, you are also potentially gaining access to their social network of
friends and family (ex. via Twitter “retweets”, Facebook “shares”, Pinterest “pins”, etc).
Another technique to grow your base is “follow your followers”. By following your fans on Twitter or
liking the business pages of your customers on Facebook, you show interest in them and they will
appreciate your acknowledgement of them. In turn, they will be more apt to promote and remember
your brand 8.
6
“Top 10 Free Social Media Monitoring Tools”, Ruxandra Mindruta, Brandwatch, August 9, 2013.
“Social Media 101: Social Media Disasters”, Bill Chamberlin, Principal Analyst, IBM Market Insights, April 25, 2011
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“2014 Social Media Best Practices Guidelines”, V12 Group Inc., January 2014.
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8) Collect and analyze data—Most social media networks provide some basic statistics on page visits,
“likes”, number of fans/followers, and allow for polling and data collection. But beyond these basic
metrics, you can collect and analyze additional data by setting up unique links, promotions, and coupon
codes for social media efforts. By having these unique codes and links, any traffic or “hits” from them can
be attributed to social media. Combined with the basic analytics from the social sites themselves, you
can start to get a picture of what is working successfully to motivate behavior and what is not.
The next trend in data analysis is predictive technologies that take the historical analytic data and
perform analysis to predict future behavior. Using data mining, advanced statistical modeling, and other
techniques, these predictive technologies will be gaining popularity and traction in 2014 and beyond 9.
9) Refine your strategy—Continuously seeking to improve your social networking effectiveness is a key to
developing a successful result over the long term. It has already been proven how quickly the social
media landscape can change (mySpace vs. Facebook). Your strategy, the tools you use, and the
capabilities therein need to flex and adapt along with it. Talk to savvy social media users (your teenage
son/daughter might be the best expert you can talk to!) to determine what the latest trends and sites
are. Consult sites such as mashable.com to learn the latest on social media news and tools. The fresher
your approach and social media program is, the better the likelihood for success.
Another important thing to keep in mind is that your strategy needs to be specific to the social media
platform you are using. Creating a Facebook post and linking back to it on Twitter, Pinterest, and other
sites will alienate users that purposely use alternate networks. By tailoring your content to each of the
platforms you are using, it gives you the ability to test different strategies and content in a controlled
setting to gauge effectiveness 10.
10) Use video when possible - In 2014, “micro videos” are one of the hottest new trends in social
media 11. Sites such as Vine, Instagram, and Viddy let you create and post videos from 6-15 seconds
long. While that may seem to too short to be effective, don’t be fooled. Micro videos are easily viewed
on mobile devices and can be used to be entertain your audience, show an item in greater detail than a
photo, ask your followers a video question, or as a response to someone else’s micro video, just to name
a few examples. These videos can also be shared to your Facebook and Twitter sites as well and can be
created in seconds. Of course, longer form videos and animations are also extremely effective, provided
they can hold the audience’s attention.
11) Be creative!—The most exciting part about social media is that there are few rules to break, plenty of
room for innovation, and more options than you will ever need. By combining social media platforms and
channels, you can create truly interactive campaigns that can engage your target audience. Consider
these hypothetical examples.
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Create 4 QR codes (see guide in Toolbox on QR Codes for more information) with a segment of a
complete URL address (a non-public, private URL page you create) and hide them in public areas
around town. Promote your Scavenger Hunt contest on Facebook and Twitter, giving regular
clues as to the whereabouts of the hidden codes. When all 4 are found, the user has the
“A 2014 Social Media Guide: New Trends and Solutions to Live By”, Julia McCoy, CEO – Express Writers, January 15,
2014.
10
“50 Social Media Best Practices”, Amanda Nelson, ExactTarget blog, February 6, 2014.
11
“Hottest Social Media Sites for 2014”, Mark Scott, Owner - DOC Marketing, December 4, 2013.
•
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complete URL to a discount coupon and entry into a prize contest, provided they enter their email
address for contest verification.
Create and sponsor a meetup.com online group for professional office managers and purchasing
agents. Secure a room at a local restaurant once a month (usually available at no cost) and
invite your existing customers to attend, while promoting the club on your Facebook, Twitter, and
meetup.com accounts. Check in at the restaurant on Foursquare and post photos of the event
on Flickr.
Create an office furniture photo board on Pinterest to highlight past projects. Invite your
customers to share their favorite photos from their office or host an “ugly chair” page to build
interaction with customers and prospects.
Social Media Networks To Watch in 2014
New social networks seem to pop up all the time, becoming more specialized and refined to offer users
features or niche services not served by the larger networks. Here are a few rising social media networks that
may break out in 2014 12:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Google+ - While this is already a “major” social network, user adoption has been much slower than
Google could have predicted. But since Google is now tying Google+ into its Google Authorship
feature (a method for verifying an author’s identity of content), it is moving out of being just a social
network into a key component of Google’s page-rank algorithm 13. Be sure you are represented!
Viddy –Viddy is an Instagram-like service for videos that allows users to post 15 second clips to their
followers. Users can add color filters to enhance videos and share to other social networks.
Ghost – This is a new blogging site, founded by a former executive at WordPress, focused on being
easy to use while offering a slick user experience.
Days – Another photo sharing site, Days niche is to combine a calendar with your photos, creating a
visual timeline of your daily events.
Thumb – Using the principle of “crowd-sourcing”, Thumb lets users get instant opinions from others
with a “thumbs up” or “thumbs down” response to questions or photos they post.
Medium – For users who feel overwhelmed by Facebook and Twitter, this app is an invitation-only
network that emphasizes longer form content and more thoughtful conversations.
Conclusion
Social media is a powerful, evolving marketing phenomenon that will continue to grow, improve, and shape
the way businesses interact with their customers. Unlike other forms of advertising (TV, radio, billboards)
social media has a very low cost of entry and can be managed in-house with the right person and a solid plan.
Businesses that wish to thrive in social media need to be ambitious and creative, yet cautious not to make
mistakes that alienate fans or disenfranchises existing customers. By following the best practices listed above,
you can avoid many common mistakes and develop a plan that works for your business, market, and
community.
Click on the logo to visit the Independent Stationers Facebook page!
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“Six Rising Social Media Networks to Keep an Eye on in 2014”, Alicia Lawrence, January 9, 2014.
“A 2014 Social Media Guide: New Trends and Solutions to Live By”, Julia McCoy, CEO – Express Writers, January
15, 2014.
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