Social media marketing is a powerful tool for any business. It helps to reach your audience, attract new customers, tell about the product promoted and get feedback. Using social media channels, you will find your brand’s supporters and increase sales.
Surely, when developing social media marketing strategy, the type of content and its task for the business have a key role. But there is one more important aspect to consider, which is social media etiquette rules. Breaking the unofficial rules of etiquette, you risk looking unprofessional and making a negative impression on your audience.
According to a recent report published on the DataReportal, Facebook is the most ‘active’ social media platform in the world. It had 2.934 billion monthly active users in July 2022. Probably, you also have a profile on Facebook. That is why we will focus on the etiquette rules of this social network.
Facebook etiquette rules you should never break
A company should be very careful about the choice of words and the tone of voice when reaching the audience on Facebook. The wrong strategy will have a negative impact on the entire advertising campaign. Moreover, it will damage your brand’s reputation.
You can’t be just a vendor company on Facebook. You should become a friend or a neighbor who entertains users and helps to solve their problems. Surely, it it no necessity to use different helpdesk solutions as you can do this in the
Aggressive marketing is more likely to irritate the audience who came to this social network to relax and have a good time. Support your potential customers and provide them with high-quality and interesting content. To be even more successful, never break the following etiquette rules:
#1 Always reply to your audience
Besides reading a post, Facebook users can also look through the comments under the post. You should reply to them and engage your audience in short informative talks.
In some cases, a simple ‘Thank you’ will be enough, but sometimes you need to give a more detailed reply. Surely, not as the helpdesk solutions tell the thorough way to resolve the problem, but nevertheless. Sometimes it is a real problem to find specific help even in customer support. But you must be different.
Avoid negative replies and conflicts. Even if you see a negative comment, do not delete it. Choose the right words and be respectful. All these details create your image in social media and build your brand reputation. You don’t want to have a reputation for being rude, do you?
Some companies respond to their audience in an informal witty tone and joke often. This is quite an effective strategy that brings company and audience together. But it’s very important not to cross the line. Be very careful choosing the jokes for your audience, otherwise you can be misunderstood.
#2 Do informative posts, give advice and add links
If you are an expert in a particular field, tell your followers about it. Share your thoughts on related topics, or offer valuable advice.
Grow your page audience and engagement. The more people read your posts, the more likely they will start following you and purchase your product. If you add a link to your post, explain to the readers what to expect when they click on it. Tell them why they should read it.
In addition, do not forget about the general concept. Your posts should be consistent, but not monotonous. Even if your product isn’t highly specialized, focus on its different sides.
This works not only for Facebook, but for other platforms as well. No marketing channels can thrive in isolation, they are all interlinked. So remember the importance of social media and content marketing strategy alignment. If all the content you publish looks distinctive and unique, the target audience will start to identify it with your company.
#3 Focus on quality, not quantity
The quality of Facebook accounts that follow you is more important than their number. Don’t start following random accounts hoping that they will follow you back. Do not place marketing content on pages where it is prohibited. This is not the impression you would like to make on your potential customers.
If you have 10,000 followers on Facebook, but half of them are inactive accounts, it’s a big risk to your engagement rates.
Instead, try to attract active and loyal users who will give you feedback, leave comments, share opinions and repost your posts.
Learn to worry less about the number of followers and focus on creating high-quality content for your audience.
#4 Do not copy someone else’s marketing content. Develop your own
Did you find any interesting post? Share it with your target audience and indicate the author.
For example, if you want to repost some witty remark or a cool image, try to find the original content creator and tag him in your post. If the author is not registered on Facebook, be sure to credit to the creator in your repost.
Before sharing a post, check the original account. It is better to make sure in advance that this source is reliable.
#5 Don’t post too frequently in a short period of time
You probably have a friend who is super-active on social media and posts something every half an hour. At some point, you get tired and after a while you wish to unfollow this annoying account.
It may seem that too frequent posts will attract more attention to your product, but most likely it will have the opposite effect and you start losing followers.
It would be better if instead you wait a few hours or till the next day before posting again.
#6 Follow the 80/20 rule
It’s really simple. The rule indicates that 80% of your social media posts should be useful to your audience and only 20% should promote your business.
This means that your posts must be:
- relevant to your audience;
- informative and open to public;
- of high quality;
- based on credible sources.
Share important information with your audience, make them smile, teach them something new. Such posts will not attract customers directly. Anyway, your posts should give some result. It will hardly happen if you share 20 random articles that have nothing to do with your business area.
If users like some business page, most likely they are already familiar with the product or service promoted. In this case, your task is to keep up their interest and engagement. Post content that is relevant to your business and interesting for your audience at the same time.
And now back to the 20% of content that should promote your product or service. In the ideal case, such a post should end with a call to action, for example:
- Join us and get a great offer.
- Read the article to learn something new.
- Register for a free consultation.
- Use this promo code to activate a 30% discount when placing an order.
#7 Make your content mobile friendly
According to the research on We Are Social, the number of active users of mobile devices has grown to 5.31 billion in 2022. This means that your target audience is more likely to scroll through Facebook or other social media on a smartphone when going somewhere or coming home from work.
Ignoring the role of mobile devices and social networks in society, you miss this opportunity to reach a wide audience in a quick, relatively cheap and effective way.
To make your content mobile friendly, choose simple images that are displayed correctly on mobile devices, and make your posts easy to read. Avoid long reads. Instead, give your readers the possibility to read the full article via clicking the link.
On average, people spend a few seconds looking through a post in the feed. Your task is to make them stop scrolling and read your post to the end. Think how you can attract their attention and warm up their interest. Test different techniques.
#8 Always mention other companies in your posts
Be polite. If you refer to other companies or repost their content, be sure to indicate the original source of information.
This is a great way to support other businesses and increase your brand awareness on social media. Otherwise, you will look disrespectful and rude.
Don’t forget to thank those who mention you in their posts. This will help you to establish good relationships with other business accounts without much effort and find the ideal cross-promotional partner.
#9 Use cross-promotion
Cross-promotion is the practice of building strategic partnerships with other brands to increase brand awareness and improve marketing strategy. This marketing technique allows you to get more traffic and generate leads.
For example, fseXpert cooperates actively with companies of similar business niches on social media. This engineering platform is used to find technical specialists and book consultations with them. It can be related to the following topics of interest: electrical engineering, industrial cybersecurity, online industrial training, industrial web design, etc.
Another good example is the Google and KitKat collaboration. As a result, Google named a new version of the Android operating system after a KitKat chocolate bar, and Nestlé launched a limited edition of chocolate with the Android logo. Of course, this advertising campaign was also reflected in social networks.
In fact, cross-promotion is a win-win solution for all companies that share marketing content and promote each other.
#10 Listen to your audience and react to any feedback
Many companies don’t get any feedback from their audience. Anyway, it is in your power to engage them and keep them interested. Your followers on Facebook can be a focus group to identify business problems and help to solve them.
Social networks have become a platform where companies and customers can communicate. Ask your audience the following specific questions: How do you use our product? Is there anything you would like to change? What kind of problems did you have using the product?
Of course, it is not enough just to collect feedback. You have to react. Your audience should know that you hear them and appreciate their opinion.
Social media is a powerful tool to promote any company. But when developing a marketing strategy and implementing it, it is very important to follow etiquette rules.
One more bonus tip #11 on Facebook Etiquette:
Work on your communication style and tone of voice. Choose a tone that will distinguish you from other accounts. This will help you to reach your audience and create the required emotional coloring of your content. A clear voice will help you to make yourself known and get your message out to the audience. For example, Old Spice is famous for its fun and absurd humor, which stands it out from a whole army of competitors.
What does this have to do with etiquette rules? The tone of your voice on social media is as important as in live communication. When you address your audience, make sure that your voice sounds low, pleasant, and non-irritating. You want to become a friend for them, not a rude fellow, right?
Let your business page speak for you. Attract your target audience with interesting content and witty remarks, rather than annoying advertising. Facebook users do not tolerate falseness, but they will be glad to follow a page with valuable and unique content.