Social media is now part of everyday life with over 4.4 billion expected users by 2025. As such, it’s a no-brainer that brands use it to communicate with their customers.However, just as it’s crucial to practice proper etiquette when conversing in-person, you also need to do the same online.Poor social media etiquette can lead to terrible consequences for an erring company. For example, in 2018, Snapchat lost an estimated $800 million after making a post that seemed to trivialize domestic violence.

Social Media Etiquette

Here are some benefits of practising proper social media etiquette:<ul><li>It makes your brand empathetic.</li><li>It helps you recover from fails.</li><li>It makes your social media campaigns more productive.</li><li>It helps you focus on what’s important.</li><li>It keeps you on the good side of the law.</li><li>It keeps you top-of-mind.</li></ul>

The Benefits of Social Media Etiquette

Your core values should resonate in your content. So if one core value is respect, you’d want to keep sassy comments out of your social media.On the other hand, if your brand is big on humor, then snarky comments would be on-brand.

Do's Of Social Media Etiquette: Stick to your Core Values

79% of customers expect a response in the first 24 hours of reaching out to your brand on social media.So, DO respond as soon as possible. Responding quickly to positive feedback reinforces a customer’s liking of your brand.Slow response, especially to complaints, makes customers feel like they’re left on read—and we all know how that feels.Nike Support (@NikeSupport) replies to customers every few minutes, which is probably one reason why people love them on social media.

Respond Quickly

If people come to your page and see an incomplete profile, it gives the wrong impression and they’ll feel you’re not serious enough about engaging with them.So, complete your profile and include useful information, for example, contact information when appropriate.Glossier’s Instagram profile, for example, contains information you need to know about it and includes its website where you can get more information.

Complete Your Social Page Profile

Hashtags can boost engagement, but too many hashtags on a post can make you look unprofessional and annoying.Displaying good social media etiquette will require you to use only hashtags that are relevant to the post.Coca-Cola’s branded #ShareACoke hashtag is an excellent example of a brand that used hashtags well.

Use Hashtags Correctly

While your audience and industry should be factored in, a good rule of thumb is to post at least once a week.If you don’t, there’s the risk of losing out on opportunities for driving brand awareness.

Post Regularly

Humor is subjective, and what’s funny to you might be insensitive or downright offensive to others.If you’re not sure about how a joke would be taken, then it’s better to keep it locked away.Aside from Wendy’s, another brand that’s hacked funny social media replies and posts is Innocent Drinks.

Don'ts Of Social Media Etiquette: Don't Overdo Humor

Don’t be desperate to get followers. It can be off-putting to see a business ask for followers every chance it gets.By posting valuable and authentic content, you’ll be able to grow your follower count and get high-quality interactions that will attract even more people.Fenty’s social media posts include testimonials from women of different nationalities and ethnicities, which is one reason for its rapid growth.

Don't Be Desperate

Followers will quickly get tired if they see too much on social media from your brand.Balance is key. If ever you’ll post more often than before, tell your audience beforehand and explain why. Then they’ll be less likely to unfollow you during your spree.

Don’t Over-Promote the Business

Tempted to use a bot to respond to your customers? Then you’re on your way to losing them.Users are smart, and they can sense when a response is automated. If you can’t be online 24/7, share the hours when customers can reach you on the platform. Twitch Support’s bio contains its scope of assistance and open hours.

Don’t Use a Bot for Replies

DO YOU WRITE IN ALL CAPS? Then you are likely stressing out your audience. Why? BECAUSE IT FEELS LIKE YOU’RE SHOUTING AT THEM!Even Twitter’s official business website for brandsadvises against tweeting in all caps.So, stop with all caps. They aren’t funny and come off as rude and aggressive. Use all caps only when something is truly important (or exciting), and you definitely HAVE to call your audience's attention to it.

Don’t Write in All Caps

Social media can be a minefield, and only good social media policies can guide brands and employees around it.  Respecting othersAlthough employees have the right to say what is on their minds and can post content on their personal time, it’s important to encourage them to be polite and calm on social media.Thinking before replying or posting online can de-escalate a potentially bad situation.

Social Media Etiquette for Employees: Respect Others

Social media isn’t the place to discuss sensitive company matters or disclose internal information.As an employee, you might not realize that you’re discussing sensitive or internal matters, so the best thing is to take no chances. If it’s not your place to do so or you’re unsure, then move on without discussing such matters online.

Respect Privacy and Confidentiality

There’s a rush that comes from being the first to ‘break the news.’ However, doing so might come at the cost of losing your job.So before you post or comment, ensure you’re entitled to share the information. Even if it doesn’t get you dismissed, some information you share might hurt others and ruin relationships.

Don’t Always Want to Be First

Your employer is paying you for your time, so act accordingly. Don't abuse their trust even if your employer allows you to use social media while at work.If you’re the social media manager, stick to the professional accounts. Using that time to attend to trivial, personal stuff is unfair. It’s also risky because you could end up mixing up accounts and posting something you shouldn’t with your professional account.

Don’t Use Social Media on Your Employer’s Time

Be mindful that you represent your employer. Thus, post information like you’re posting on their behalf.Use good judgment when posting online. For example, if someone posts negative information about the organization, don’t fly into a confrontation. Instead, tell someone in charge who can handle the matter or give you instructions on how to handle it.

Be a Good Company Ambassador

These Dos and Don’ts of social media etiquette might seem challenging to follow. However, following them can save you and your company a lot of stress.Several brands have experienced the power of cancel culture firsthand, and you can avoid their experiences by practicing good social media etiquette.When you care about your audience and put yourself in their shoes, you can have a good culture of social media etiquette that will benefit your brand.

The Bottom Line

Don't get cancelled! Protect your brand online with this guide to social media etiquette and manners. 

Stashed ideas

Sense and Sociability - The Corporate Guide to Social Media Etiquette

<ul><li>Master the target audience.</li><li>Select the appropriate social media platform.</li><li>Create content with high engagement.</li><li>Time content for maximum reach.</li><li>Boost visibility with advertising.</li><li>Partner with a social media influencer.</li><li>Measure performance to create better campaigns in the future.</li><li>Provide a clear call to action.</li></ul>

Secrets To Go Viral On Social Media

Viral Marketing is a business strategy that uses a social media platform to promote a product or service. In other words, it is a digital marketing strategy that tries to convince the customer to become a brand advocate of the existing products/services.It encourages people to share with other people to reach a larger audience and thereby making the advertisement go viral! We take a look at some notable viral campaigns.

Top 10 Viral Marketing Examples

Zoom, a video conferencing platform, had come up with a Virtual Background Competition in March 2020. It had introduced the monthly competition for remote workers. They could share videos or pictures using zoom’s virtual background feature. A monthly competition with three prizes per month.How did Zoom perform? Over 50,000 people signed just to take part in the competition. Another great thing was customer value-added service. This campaign brought new people to Zoom and got them to explore different features. A good way to make sure customers learn and recommend further.

Zoom Virtual Background Challenge

The company focused on the "selfie" aspect that people can share on social media which creates huge buzz among people. They find it a great product. The camera quality made people start filming and creating content. These beautiful pictures do not have any direct link to the brand except for the tag – Shot on iPhone.People have started sharing the Shot on iPhone images and video. The campaign became a great hit because of the memes. Apple had successfully portrayed itself as the best camera phone for all camera lovers or content creators out there.

Apple: Shot on iPhone

Dove conducted a study and analyzed that only 2% of women considered themselves beautiful. So, they conceived the idea of using real women rather than models for their ad. In this video marketing, the artist draws two sketches of a woman - one that she herself help him to create and another described by somebody. The video went viral globally by spreading the brand message and belief in confidence. The marketers tried to deeply touch the emotions of the people through this campaign.

Dove Real Beauty Sketches Campaign

iHeartDogs is a company that was established for a social welfare purpose. Every time people buy their products, they donate meals to dog shelters. Keeping to its core, the company started running ads on Facebook to attract more people to donate.The campaign said that they will provide nothing for buying their products. Instead of discounts, they promised to double donations from purchases made over the weekend. They launched a 0% off campaign from Black Friday to Giving Tuesday. The ad on Facebook read 0% off but the company ended with quadrupling sales.

iHeartDogs: 0% off

The South by South West (SXSW) conference brings together thousands of millennials interested in music, interactive media, and film every year. The SXSW is held in Austin, Texas. Twitter as a startup negotiated with the organizers to place huge screens around the venue. These were updated with real-time messaging and attendees with Twitter accounts participated in the campaign and promoted the brand.This created a massive impact, demonstrating the arrival of a new social media age. Twitter gained a new reputation and many new subscribers who wanted to become part of something new.

Twitter's Launch Campaign

Uber became a social sensation at the South by South West festival. They offered free rides to attendees during the conference and festival. This created a sensation during the event and people started discussing it on social media. Wouldn’t you? Everyone wants to experience free service and that too in such style! The deluge of information back and forth was so much that a <a href="https://startuptalky.com/best-video-advertising-platforms/">social media platform</a> collapsed.

Uber's Launch Campaign

Spotify, a startup founded in 2008 in Sweden and provides audio streaming and media services. In 2011, it initiated co-marketing with Facebook to solidify its position. A personal playlist can be published on a user’s Facebook page and at the same time, another user can listen to it with a single click.As of the second quarter of 2021, Spotify has 165 million premium subscribers worldwide and is available in more than 15 countries including the UK, the US, and the MENA region.

Spotify Co-marketing with Facebook

Dropbox, is the go-to cloud storage service to save your files and data. And the best part is once stored in virtual space, you can share and sync your files without the hassle of sending attachments individually.They set a great example of affiliate marketing that went viral. Dropbox offered 500 MB of free storage for every referral and signup by an existing customer. What happened? Well, Dropbox saw registration shoot up by 60%. Even now, a major part of new customers is deriving from word of mouth.

Dropbox Referral Offer

Mint proved that with its unique marketing strategy and great product for content creators. Mint used its blogs to create awareness and gave special benefits to users who put "I Want Mint" badges on their blogs or social media pages. That was great free advertising!They were able to make customers feel special without spending money. And from this badge, Mint got free advertising on 600 different blogs from both normal people and influencers.

"I Want Mint" Badge

This Ice Bucket Challenge is also known as ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. The campaign was started with the purpose to promote awareness of the disease Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis and encouraging donations to research. Many big personalities like <a href="https://startuptalky.com/bill-gates-microsoft/">Bill Gates</a>, Oprah Winfrey and <a href="https://startuptalky.com/justin-bieber-endorsed-brands/">Justin Bieber</a> took part in the campaign to raise awareness by pouring a bucket of ice water over themselves.The campaign went viral on social media and helped the organisation to raise over $220 million and became the fifth most popular Google search in the year 2014.

ALS Ice Bucket Challenge

Marketing is an essential element for any business, startup or established organization to tell customers how awesome their product is and why they should buy it. There are innovative ways to promote your product. Now that you know the various examples of viral marketing campaigns, you can apply this to make your brand go viral and reach a larger target audience. Not all viral campaigns have to be funny or shocking. It can go viral for both positive and negative reasons if you can deeply touch customers' emotions by spreading the brand's message.

Check out these top viral marketing campaigns that created a huge sensation on social media and how it tends to reach a larger target audience.

Instagram has many tools to help you get a better grasp on your audience's engagement. However, its swipe up links on stories has been replaced with stickers. Users can now direct their audience to external websites instead.  The sticker function is an effort to streamline their sticker selections.

Stickers replaced 'Swipe Up' links 

Marketers used the swipe up feature to track metrics, optimise click-through rates, and use it as a quick way to connect to landing pages. <ul><li>But the swipe up feature also didn't allow your viewers to really interact with your content.</li><li>Your viewers couldn't comment or reply to a story with a swipe up link.</li><li>They were only for those with 10K plus followers or a verified account.</li></ul>

The downside of the 'Swipe Up' feature

They give you greater creative control. The stickers look and work the same as other stickers. You can change the style and size and put it anywhere in your story.More engagement. Users can get quick reactions and replies on posts with a link sticker.

Stickers are an upgrade

<ul><li>Make it pop. Use bright colours and attractive stickers.</li><li>Ensure your brand is visually consistent.</li><li>Use clear CTAs. People want to be told how they need to interact with your content.</li></ul>However, be aware that the transition from the swipe up feature may take a while to catch on, and your link sticker numbers may fail to grow immediately. However, when they do, you'll be prepared.

Building more engagement with link stickers

Learn how to use an Instagram link sticker and use the platform to grow your business: https://clickhubspot.com/wqx With the removal of the Instagram Swipe Up feature, Link Stickers are the new kid on the block. But what is an Instagram Link Sticker? How do you use it? What does it look like? Do you need a code or something special to create one? Watch this video and learn everything you need to know about the new Instagram Link Sticker Feature and how to use it to drive traffic back to your website! 📔 Grow Your Career and Business with HubSpot Academy: https://clickhubspot.com/Popular-Courses 📔 Favorite Free Certification Courses: • Digital Marketing Certification: https://clickhubspot.com/od6 • Social Media Marketing Course: https://clickhubspot.com/Social-Media-Certification • SEO Training Course: https://clickhubspot.com/SEO-Training-Course • Inbound Course: https://clickhubspot.com/Inbound-Certification • Inbound Marketing Course: https://clickhubspot.com/Inbound-Marketing-Certification • Email Marketing Course: https://clickhubspot.com/Email-Marketing-Certification • Inbound Sales Course: https://clickhubspot.com/Inbound-Sales-Certification • Taking your Business Online Course: https://clickhubspot.com/Business-Online About HubSpot: HubSpot is a leading CRM platform that provides education, software, and support to help businesses grow better. The platform includes marketing, sales, service, and website management products that start free and scale to meet our customers’ needs at any stage of growth. Today, thousands of customers around the world use HubSpot’s powerful and easy-to-use tools and integrations to attract, engage, and delight customers. ⚠ Disclaimer: The videos on our YouTube channel are for informational purposes only, and are not intended as an endorsement for any of the products or services that we feature. #HubSpot #instagram

How to Use an Instagram Link Sticker | Swipe-up removal

Nowadays, companies and professionals often work tirelessly to increase their social media authority.
The goal is to attract more followers, get more clicks, more likes, and create a positive user experience so that they stay around enough to never want to leave.

Increasing your social media authority

When it’s just you, you need to take a different approach to developing your brand through social media. Since more than 90% of customers rely on information from people they know when making a buying decision, building personal connections can be the most effective way to build trust and authority with your audience.
The good news is that being your brand, it is much simpler to make personal posts with daily content, which has great acceptance by the audience.

Digital marketing

If you want to build loyalty and win the trust of your audience, creating relevant and valuable content should be your number one focus.
This is the kind of content that meets the needs and pitfalls of your audience.
Whether it is an infographic, videos, ebook or blog post, everything you create should be targeted to your specific niche.

Create valuable content

Your image is part of your brand and establishes your identity with the public.
In today’s world, we already know that image sells and is often the only thing to which many people give real attention.
Therefore, in all your social profiles, you must maintain a certain standard, a signature that your audience can soon recognize and associate with you.

Keep a consistent image

As a leader and authority in your area, you want to be at the forefront of everything that is happening.
Stay tuned for the news that appears about your segment and share it with your followers. The fresher the news, the better!
Do not be satisfied to just publish the content, build your credibility, and explain what it is and why it matters.

Publish news

<ul>
<li>Encourage engagement: Use social media as a virtual place for your fans to come together and share their thoughts. This will not only give your opinion relevance, but will also help you organically appear in the news feed.</li>
<li>Opportunity to prove your authority: Instead of simply repeating the news, tell people why they should care. Share your own thoughts and comments and establish your experience.</li>
<li>Shareable: If the content you are posting is timely, interesting, and relevant, your audience will be more inclined to share it.</li>
</ul>

Keeping up with current events

Developing a relationship, a connection with your audience, so that your followers feel they are seen and valued, greatly helps to increase your social media authority.
One way to do this is to get in touch with each follower, which can be done through direct messages that exist in virtually every social network.

Give as much as you can

Give some of your time, your advice, and any other resources you have available to help you create connections.
When you start, make it a habit to contact at least one person every day with an offer of help.

Offer help to others

To increase your authority on the hottest social networks, such as Facebook and Instagram, you need a solid posting strategy.
This starts and ends with the right times to share your content.
You do not want to post about your new data-packed case study if your audience is sleeping. By checking and analysing user data, you can understand the habits of your followers and schedule your updates accordingly for better results.

Share content at the right time

<ul>
<li>To build your influence and social media authority, you need to connect with other professionals with interests similar to yours.</li>
<li>Strange as it may seem to connect with potential competitors, know that relationships are everything in the online world.</li>
<li>When you begin to engage with other professionals and interact with their content, the connection grows and they will probably return the gesture.</li>
<li>It is mutually beneficial and exposes both sides to a larger audience.</li>
</ul>

Connect with other professionals

<ul>
<li>Instead of talking to your audience, you need to talk with them. Participate in their conversations and become active participants.</li>
<li>Do not invest all your time just in creating content, creating social media authority is directly linked to building relationships.</li>
<li>Listen to what your fans, followers and customers are saying about you and your brand.</li>
<li>Once you know what is happening, you can easily insert yourself into these conversations.</li>
<li>Do this by sharing advice or timely information. This will help you become a valuable resource and build bridges.</li>
</ul>

Collaborate and get involved with your audience

Gain Social Media Currency To Grow professionally.

If you need to promote your brand, you probably are wondered how to increase your social media authority and gain more visibility, right?

7 Ways to increase your social media authority and grow your business

While the challenges of social media content creation may feel daunting, showing up consistently has big benefits for your business. By posting valuable content consistently, you can:
<ul>
<li>Grow your audience</li>
<li>Increase brand awareness</li>
<li>Build authority in your industry</li>
<li>Improve engagement</li>
</ul>
If you are looking to achieve any of the benefits listed above, it is worth figuring out a sustainable strategy for saving time planning and creating social media content. The key to achieving this is twofold—planning in advance and batch working content creation.

Posting Valuable Content Consistently

<ul>
<li>Each month, set aside time to map out your social media content for the following month.</li>
<li>By outlining the content topics you want to cover for the entire month, you can look at your content from a higher level and be more strategic about your content plan.</li>
<li>Plan on spending 1-2 hours each month mapping out your content for the following month.</li>
</ul>

Content Planning Process

<ul>
<li>Number of posts. Keep in mind that quality and consistency are more important than the number of posts. Stick to a schedule and frequency you can sustain long-term.</li>
<li>Goals. What are your overall business goals for the month? How can your content support those goals?</li>
<li>Any important dates. Do you have a new product or service launching, or an event? </li>
<li>Social media holidays you want to “celebrate”. Are there relevant social media holidays you want to celebrate on your social platforms?</li>
</ul>

Things to Include in Your Content Plan

One of the biggest challenges when it comes to social media content is knowing what to post.
When creating content for social media, it is important to share a variety of types of content. Your content should educate, entertain, or sell.

The Types of Social Media Content You Should Create

Batch working is a highly focused, topic-specific form of working. When batch working, you divide your work into different hours/days and focus on only one thing at a time. Batch working can be applied to all areas of your life and work, but here we will focus on how to utilize it for content creation.
The idea is that by focusing on one task at a time, you can get into a flow state which is when your productivity and creativity truly flourish. The end result is better quality content in less time.

Batch Working

<ul>
<li>Plan a Month of Content: map out the entire month on content.</li>
<li>Create All Visual Content. Write a list of everything you need from stock photos, custom graphics, videos, Reels, cover images, etc. Once you have the list, it’s time to start creating.</li>
<li>Write All Captions. By batching captions and following a caption formula, you can quickly write captions that convert your audience.</li>
<li>Schedule Posts. Now that you have your visuals and captions, it’s time to schedule your posts according to your content calendar.</li>
<li>Add Hashtags (if posting to Instagram).</li>
</ul>

Streamline Content Creation With Batchworking

<ul>
<li>Hook: Grab their attention right off the bat. You have to inspire your audience to click “read more”.</li>
<li>Value: Deliver on what you promised in your hook and share content that educates, entertains, or sells.</li>
<li>Call to Action: Tell your audience what you want them to do next (i.e. share, like, comment, click, buy, sign up, tag, etc.). Keep your calls to action simple and fun.</li>
</ul>

What a Good Caption Should Include

In this post, we're sharing a sustainable strategy for saving time planning and creating social media content.

Sense and Sociability - The Corporate Guide to Social Media Etiquette

Top 10 Viral Marketing Examples

How to Use an Instagram Link Sticker | Swipe-up removal

7 Ways to increase your social media authority and grow your business

How To Save Time Planning and Creating Social Media Content

It's time to

READ

LIKE

A PRO!