5 Ways to Keep Your Social Media Under Control

Social media is one of the most powerful tools able to easily gain and/or destroy a reputation.  There are always quick reports – which turn viral – on social media gone wrong.  Social media is one area the public is vastly knowledgeable about and one wrong move…and it’s over.  It doesn’t matter if the social media account was personal or business-related; everyone has an eye out for social media.  Here are 5 ways to keep your social media delivering quality and engaging content.

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One of the most broken rules in social media.  Hastags are a great way of getting your message out to a wider audience, but that doesn’t mean it should be overdone or inappropriately used.

Using multiple hastags can certainly make a company seem it is trying too hard or getting in the way of the intended message.  Loading up on hastags in a post can definitely make the post ugly and more annoying than helpful.  Instead of piling on a number of hastags in a message (especially the long hastag lines), use only one or two.  Not only are you promoting a specific hastag for the audience to remember, it also looks clean and civilized.

Keep hastags also relevant to what you are marketing or delivering.  Having a trending hastag in a tweet does not result in users flocking to your account.  It may actually have people ignore the specific post and/or the account and skip over to the more relevant content.

Frequency

Posts and tweets shouldn’t be done once a month or even once a week, but there also shouldn’t be constant post up every minute.  A few tweets a day, five days a week can keep things interesting and engaging for many of the social media users.  The frequency can be debated depending on what kind of audience you are looking for, but a sweet spot to start would be a few posts a day.  That way you can start analyzing and figuring out what times would be perfect to tweet or post new ideas and content.  Speaking of time…

Time

The timing is very important for a tweet or a post.  No one wants to read a tweet randomly at 3 a.m. on a Sunday and no one from California is going to read a tweet from New York sent 8 a.m. EST.  The posting and tweets sent need to be adjusted for an audience that may be awake around the clock or only for a specific period of time.  Have a worldwide audience?  Try posting the same content 6-8 hours apart in the day to get across to everyone.  Only looking for social media presence locally?  Then make sure tweets go out at the right times such as before or after lunch or dinner time.  Studies have proven more people engage around the lunch and dinner time more than in the morning and more engagement on Thursdays and the weekends.  Timing makes a huge difference and will reach out to your audience and keep them engaged.

Quality

Not quantity.  I may have just talked about frequency of posts and tweets earlier, but if you just dole out random tweets, no one is going to listen to you.  Make things engaging and make sure it is about the brand and what the brand does for the people.  Talk about interesting discussions or even promote something interest.  Just deliver something valuable instead of just concentrating on marketing your brand.  Finding the right amount of postings/tweeting and providing quality content will only take time, but also gain a steady amount of loyal followers.

Damage Control

One of the biggest things a lot of people overlook and miss out on the beneficial-side of mistakes on social media.  Customer service is a big deal – hopefully – to many, if not all stores.  So why not have the same quality on social media?  Some tweets and posts are not and will not ever be irreversible when it comes to reputation damage.  Here are a few examples which can easily show why.  However, many can be easily be fixed and allow businesses and others to gain more from the mistake than not making it all.  Companies such as Red Cross have dealt with some mistakes and easily turned it around for them.  Swift and appropriate responses create even more followers and likes, thanks in part for a business or person to be considerate and be human than just sound like a robot out of all things.  The connections made from a business to their customers is invaluable and showing that provides more insight and transparency in a business.

There are more rules and tips to follow – and more will be on the way.  As of now, these quick ideas can help prevent businesses and individuals to get them in the right track and help gain a consistent group of followers.  Remember, social media is one of the easiest ways to build and destroy a reputation.  That’s why social media is also one of the hardest and most effective tools to use.