Guest Post by Emma-Julie
People have said
time and time again that old habits die-hard. This shouldn’t be much of a
problem if the habits in question have little to no effect on others. However,
if you’re an SEO company working on social
media campaigns and the old habits you have are among those users consider
annoying, then these habits may have a significantly negative impact on your
business. It doesn’t matter what kind of business you’re in, if people find
your social media habits intolerable, your business isn’t likely to enjoy much
growth. Here are some of the things you need to be very careful with when
launching social media campaigns:
Shares and Retweets
You may not realize
this, but people have grown tired of posts that end with a request for a share
or retweet. Posts of this kind make your brand appear needy and don’t offer any
opportunity for engagement. The same is true of asking everyone (even people
you don’t know) to contribute to your Pinterest board.
Just imagine how
annoying (not to mention creepy) it would be for a complete stranger to
suddenly grab you and beg to be your friend! You don’t really have to beg for
shares and retweets. If you’re sure that the content you provide is useful to
your target audience, then they’re likely to voluntarily share and retweet it
for you.
The key is to
establish a strong relationship with your audience such that they’d be more
willing to share
your message to others even without being told.
Images
People now
appreciate visuals more than ever, which is why businesses are placing greater
importance on such things as cover photos, profile pictures, and image
galleries. You should therefore make your social media pages more visual as
well to make it more attractive to your target audience.
Being visual, of
course, starts with making sure you have a good profile picture on your social
media pages. Remember that people are more likely to engage with you when they
have a face to look at instead of just a logo, or worse, nothing at all.
Example on Attractive Cover Images
Example on Attractive Cover Images
To make sure your
pages are filled with the
right kind of images, it’s advisable for you to learn what the dimensions
for cover photos on different social media sites are. It would also be wise for
you to learn the basic rules of redesigning photos. Now, here’s a bit of good
news:
Facebook now has
more lenient rules as regards cover photos, which gives you the opportunity to
use promotional photos for special events and promotions. What’s important is
for you to make sure the images on your social media pages aren’t distorted or
blurred, as that’s among the things users find most annoying.
Hashtags
Hashtags are meant
to categorize content and provide context to your message in order to reach
your target market. A lot of people, however, abuse hashtags by using as many
as they can cram into one tweet. What’s even worse is that some people use
hashtags on Facebook! This might make you look as if you don’t know what you’re
doing.
Remember that
hashtags don’t have any functional value on Facebook at all and many users find
it really annoying. Some people say they use hashtags on Facebook because their
Facebook and Twitter accounts are linked. Well, you may want to be more careful
when you post the same content on multiple social media sites.
Use only one or two hashtags in your posts
The general rule is
for you to use two to four hashtags per post, depending on the site where
you’re posting. Two is the generally accepted number of hashtags per tweet and
more for posts made on sites like Instagram, since images generally have more
appeal to a majority of individuals. Always remember that hashtags should only
be used to provide context and to make your posts more targeted.
Cross Posting
As mentioned
earlier, you may want to post the same content on multiple social platforms
from time to time. There’s really nothing wrong with that and it is indeed a
good idea to extend the reach of your most interesting and relevant content.
What you need to be careful with is the manner in which you do the posting.
Many businesses choose to utilize tools like Tweetdeck for cross posting. If
you choose to do the same, make sure the tool you choose doesn’t end up making
your posts visually unappealing. Better yet, you could simply do the posting
manually and keep the use of cross posting tools to a minimum so as not to
annoy your online audience.
Frequency and Number of Posts
There are few things
more annoying than getting your feed inundated by posts from the
personas/groups you’ve subscribed to; more so if more than half of the posts
are inane things that you’re not interested in. Conversely, you shouldn’t do this to your
followers. Even when you’ve been inactive on social media for a few days
(something you should avoid), you should still refrain from overcompensating
with too many posts.
Set a limit as to
the number of posts you make on each social media site each day and then space
them out wisely. Let’s say you’ve chosen to make three Facebook posts and ten
tweets each day. It is better to make one post every half hour or so rather
than making all three posts and ten tweets one after the other. If you’re not
sure how much is too much in terms of social media posts, you may want to
consult a social media expert or at least ask family and friends what they find
acceptable.
You’re using social
media to get your message out there and you want to be interesting while you’re
at it. Remember, though, that being interesting doesn’t include annoying your
audience. The strategies you use on social media can indeed be very effective
in getting the word out about your business, but you need to use them very
carefully and wisely so they don’t end up backfiring on you.
Emma-Julie is professional
blogger who
writes for Pitstop Media Inc, a top rated SEO company in Vancouver. The company provides SEO
services to businesses across North America.
