When it comes to social media management, content marketing, business blogging, boosting brand presence and reaching new customers, there’s a lot of opportunity to make mistakes. Oddly enough, most mistakes are completely avoidable as long as you do three things:

  1. Write Solid Content
  2. Target the Right Audience
  3. Present Professionally

I’ve talked about writing content and targeting the proper online audiences for maximum effectiveness time and time again, but why is presentation so important?

The Need for Professionalism

Businesses often struggle with social media because platforms like Facebook and Twitter were designed for people to interact with one another first, business promotion second. These platforms have slowly become more comfortable (and rich) by allowing companies to pay for advertisements (boosted posts) and create unique product and service-oriented pages.

That said, it’s important to think about the reason why someone would follow your company. Have they been lifelong customers? Do they enjoy the interesting content you post? Do they feel proud to support a local business? Whatever the reason is, they expect some modicum of professionalism from these brands.

Businesses distinguish themselves in the social media flood by posting quasi-promotional content with intent. Also, they focus on building a “fan base” instead of sharing little quips with friends and posting BuzzFeed links.

Presentation in Online Marketing

Presentation is a difficult subject to explain because there are so many platforms and opportunities to consider. But like content, the blanket statement of “You need to present your content in the best way possible” applies.

Here is an outline of presentation tricks to keep in mind the next time you are ready to publish content:

  • Business Blogs: Unlike the everyday hipster’s food blog on Tumblr, businesses need to focus on presenting highly marketable content in the best way possible. This means taking as much time formatting posts, inserting pictures and previewing posts before they’re published is essential. Check out some big-hitter blogs within your industry to see how they do it.
  • Social Media: Is there a cookie-cutter method for professionally presenting information on social media? Not really, but there are a lot of “must-avoids” to consider. To begin with, make sure that you don’t double-link a post, that any images are displayed properly and you don’t bog down the content with a billion hashtags.
  • Brand Presence: Your brand’s online identity is the culmination of content marketing. This means you need to have high-end brand imagery that glues your assets together, make sure links are in place to help customers navigate your material and frequently share messaging that reflects your purpose as a business.