These days, consumers are discovering brands on social media. In fact, according to a study by Curalate, product discovery on social media continues to grow with more than 80% of consumers discovering a product they were interested in on social media, up from 58% in 2017.
The way your business is seen on social media is important; you’ve got to make a good first impression if you want to turn users into customers. Plus, acting properly on social media will help you keep your existing customers around as well. So, how should your business act on social media to impress consumers?
Here are 5 social media etiquette tips for businesses in 2020.
1. Interact with your followers.
If you want to grow your social media following, build meaningful relationships with your audience, and turn social media users into customers, you need to actually interact with your followers. After all, having a million followers doesn’t mean much if those followers don’t feel any connection with your brand.
When your followers take the time to talk to you, make sure you respond to them. While simply “liking” their comment or thanking them is a good start, engaging in conversation with them is even better.
Here’s an example of how Buffer interacts with their audience on Twitter:
Regularly interacting with your followers will make them feel valued and appreciated. And when your followers feel like an important part of your online community, they’ll be more loyal to your brand.
2. Respond to negative comments.
When trying to grow your brand and attract customers on social media, you might be tempted to ignore negative comments. Because, by responding to negative comments, it will bring more attention to them and give others a bad impression of your brand, right? It’s actually the opposite. When you’re able to deal with negative reviews gracefully, it actually has positive results. Responding to negative comments or reviews will show your followers that your business cares about its customers. Plus, if you respond to negative comments well, it can turn disgruntled customers into life-long fans.
Be sure to monitor conversations about your brand because not every user will tag you or comment on your page directly. To easily monitor conversations about your business across social media, you can use a social media listening tool like Agorapulse or Talkwalker.
3. Respond quickly.
How quickly you respond to users is important too, for both positive and negative comments. Because users can access social media from anywhere and at any time, it’s seen as a ‘always-on’ platform. So, users expect a fast response time. In fact, according to Convince & Convert, 42% of social media users expect a response within 60 minutes. And 57% expect the same response time at night and on weekends as during normal business hours.
Of course, you can’t sit by the computer all day and respond to comments on social media, so you need to delegate that specific task to a team member. You can also use Facebook Messenger chatbots to respond to customers for you.
Here’s how Lidl uses a Facebook chatbot to answer customer queries and provide product recommendations:
A Facebook chatbot can provide superior customer service to your social media followers in an instant, which can increase brand loyalty and even boost sales.
4. Don’t overshare.
Of course, you want to post content on social media to grab the attention of your followers. But if your followers’ social media feeds are filled with posts from you, they’re going to get annoyed. So, it’s important to not overshare on social media. Remember, it’s about quality, not quantity.
According to CoSchedule, here’s how often you should be posting on different social media platforms:
- Facebook – 1 post per day
- Twitter – 15 tweets per day
- LinkedIn – 1 post per day
- Instagram – 1-2 posts per day
- Pinterest – 11 pins per day
All of your social media posts shouldn’t be salesy either. In order to keep your followers, build relationships with them, and eventually turn them into customers, you need to provide them with valuable and engaging content.
5. Limit your hashtags.
Hashtags are great because they can help you widen your reach on social media and make it easier for potential customers to find your content online. But, go easy on the hashtags. Too many hashtags can make your brand look desperate—and it’s not very visually-appealing for users either. It’s better to limit yourself to a few relevant hashtags.
But, on Instagram you do have the option of adding hashtags in a comment so that you can still use all of the hashtags you want without looking spammy. For example, Impact Kitchen uses 2 branded hashtags in the caption. Then, the restaurant adds other relevant hashtags like #WeekendBrunch, #ChickenAndWaffles, and #GlutenFreeWaffles in a comment.
When you use hashtags wisely you’ll be able to attract new followers on social media and make your message more meaningful.
Over to you.
Now that you know these social media etiquette tips for 2020, you can improve your social media marketing strategy and grow your business overall. But remember, one of the most important tips is to be genuine. Let your followers get to know the human side of your brand and build real connections for social media success.
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