Using social channels makes you a great consumer. But being a great consumer of content on social media doesn’t always make you the best marketer on that channel. What follows is a short list of things to do and stop doing on Facebook.
Stop jumping on trends your business has no connection with
One of our biggest pet peeves: businesses posting about national days they’re not connected with at all. It’s one thing to take advantage of a conversation that’s happening, like National Dog Day. Everyone loves puppy pictures. But if it’s not relevant to your company, it’s a tough sell to jump on that. Like a children’s toy company posting about National Tequila Day, your business may have no business in calling out a trend. Don’t jump into a conversation that’s not yours.
Don’t post without a schedule
This applies to all social media platforms, but Facebook is the biggest and easiest one to schedule. You should be setting a schedule so that you have a steady stream of content. You want active, current posts, but posting without a schedule is a sure way to burn yourself out, scrambling to think of new content to post each day before deadline. But don’t schedule everything! Leave yourself wiggle room for the spontaneous. If someone walks into your business with the perfect t-shirt that says something about your business, or they come in with their dog and it’s the perfect photo opportunity or video opportunity, you want to leave room for that.
Beyond having a schedule, you should use it to pace your content. Don’t schedule them every post to go up within 5 minutes.
Don’t post it everywhere
Don’t post the exact same thing on Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. You might have a photo that’s too good not to share on all those platforms, but try making the captions different. When you post to Facebook you can have a more generic caption with a link to your website. On Instagram, get a little cheekier and build in fun hashtags. If you’re just posting the same thing on all those channels at the exact same time, it may look like a robot is doing your job.
We all get annoyed with friends who do that too. We don’t need to see the exact same thing on Snapchat, Facebook story, or Instagram story. Just your customers follow your business on multiple platforms does not mean they want to see the same content everywhere.
Overuse of Emojis
The overuse of the emoji is still a problem on Facebook. It’s understandable using them on other platforms, but the Facebook emoji trend businesses cling to is something we preach against. You don’t need a unicorn, winky-face, and a flag to tell people that “you know how to use emojis.” They don’t play as well in the Facebook space as they do when you’re texting your best friend or your grandma because she likes to use them too.
Some brands make the mistake of thinking that they have “Brand Emojis.” If you’re using the same emoji or emojis in every post because you feel it’s a branding technique, you’re incorrect.
Please, PLEASE… stop hashtagging posts on Facebook
Hashtags on Instagram? Very important! Hashtags on Twitter? You have to use less hashtags to save on space but having them for categorization makes sense. Hashtags on Facebook? No. That’s not how the platform is set up. There’s no benefit unless they’re going to go back to see all the times your business posted with that hashtag. If you’re using the same hashtag in every post it’s just like looking through the business’s feed. Understanding the purpose of hashtags on different platforms is important. In fact, Facebook searches your text, not hashtags you’ve used. If someone searches a common phrase you use because it’s a branded thing, it actually will find that whether you’ve hashtagged it or not.
While there are numerous ways to use each platform, these simple tips will keep you on point in your use of the platform, your branding, and consumer engagement.
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