Breaking The Social Media Rules

Let’s assume you have been doing some social media for your company during a few weeks already. You have read a lot of material about what to do, when to do it, the basic social media etiquette, the social media analytics, and metrics, etc. 

As you are doing this for business, you are a bit confused about where the line that separates your personal and your corporate social media behavior is. I am sure that, if you have been posting your own things on your own channels for a while, you might feel overwhelmed (and a bit frustrated) due to all these new rules and corporate control, right?

Do you feel that you need to change who you are to become the corporate blogger? Or do you believe that you have to limit yourself to publish plain pictures with no personality on the Instagram account? The answer is NO. If fact, being yourself, authentic and with your “social media personality”, perhaps will bring more value to your company social media strategy than any kind of corporate or product marketing publication. The majority of people wants to follow (authentic) people…

So, what do we do with all these social media rules?

As in real life, there is always somebody willing to say how you should behave online but, where there is a rule, there is somebody to break it, right? 

Here are some social media rules to be break right now:

Be serious: Instead of projecting a (too) serious professional image which makes you as an individual unapproachable and boring, try to simplify using easy vocabulary, join day to day conversation and a bit of sense of humor and positivism. Be careful, nobody wants to see your pictures when you are partying too heavily, but some personal pictures will make you more real.

Prepare an editorial calendar: We know that planning your editorial calendar is extremely important but, be ready to improvise and to get some content ready quickly if the situation changes. For example, if a good topic, which is not on your calendar starts to get hot on the social media channels, do not lose the opportunity to join the conversation.  

Editorial Calendars are useful, but be ready to improvise. (Image: mashable.com)

Focus on corporate topics and marketing: Making your blog too corporate is not necessary a good thing. For example, the corporate blog is not a channel to only show your products and services. Don’t use this to just deposit your old study-cases. Your social media channel is not your warehouse. Instead, prepare diverse content for all kind of readers.

Focus on your niche market: This is a very common mistake for very specific industries. Sometimes, they just focus too much on their very particular jargon which is not recognized even by Google. If you want to rank high on Google Search it is time to use more general terms and more “common” stories.

Be predictable or safe: It is very common to see corporate social media with only the typical events pictures, text about products and all the basic info. You need those, of course, but take risks and try something else.

Select one channel only: Using only LinkedIn for corporate social media because you feel that this is the only “professional” social media channel. In fact, many buyers (even in B2B industries) use other channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, to search for product info, comments, and rankings. You need to be there to be found.

Control: saying to your employees what they should publish and how, limit your employees' creativity and therefore, limit your options to find fantastic approaches to sharing info on your channels. Prepare social media policies but, give them some freedom.

Look for perfection: good quality content is compulsory on the social media, but if you need to use too many approvals to publish a blog post or a Facebook picture, you need to rethink your priorities. 

"Don’t let the perfect 

be the enemy of the good"

Social media is not rocket sciences. In order to master this, you just need to practice. So, don’t be afraid of trying and failing. Remember that the most important thing is to focus on your content. Create something that is clear and easy to read/understand. Think before you publish it. When this is published remember to check the reaction: listen to your customers/followers. Be consistent.