This is a guest post by Manidipa Bhaumik. Please show her some love by commenting and sharing. Thank you!

Social media marketing or SMM is one of the best way for increasing brand awareness and driving huge traffic in the current market. And, we all know that traffic means MONEY. But it is really challenging for a small business owner or a new start-up to drive traffic to their website. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, Youtube are some great sources of getting targeted traffic.
But do you know that there are some etiquettes or best practices which you must adopt to get the most out of your social promotions?
Social networking sites are all about user engagement and sharing useful content in the right platform. So you need to pick up the right site for your social media campaigns. Also you must structure your social media practices for your online success.

Social Media Do’s and Don’ts

1. Understand which Works Best & Prioritize the Networks

Every now and then, a new social media is budding up. But it is not at all a good idea to try each and every social network that you just discover. Rather try to concentrate your marketing efforts on the top social media sites like — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn.

But then again, just because your competitor is doing well in one social platform does not mean that you can also achieve result from that. Try to find the social networking platforms that will work best for your business.
For example, Facebook and Pinterest are a great option if you want to drive traffic. Whereas, Google+ can help you to boost your SEO (according to Social Media Today). So decide on the network as per your business need.

2. Complete Your Social Media Profiles

If you are into serious business, it must be demonstrated in your social profiles too. Choose a social handle, which will be identifiable with your brand. Use your professional logo or avatar to
make it look authentic. Also take some time to fill out your ‘About’ section. People find it more trustworthy, then an incomplete profile description.

3.Prepare a Checklists


You may think, social media promotion means just login to Facebook or Twitter account, type a post and click on submit. Isn’t it that simple?
No, it is not.

Checklists are always handy to make your job easy and organized. Take a notepad and make a checklist of things like whether your message is understandable, is it shareable, whether the links are working or not, if any typo or grammatical errors are there etc.

Decide a time frame which will be best suitable as per the time zone of people you are targeting. Also optimize the post/ tweet for maximum effect. Like in case of Twitter, only 140 char are allowed per tweet. So you need to choose the best words.

4. Know your Target Customers

To be successful in social media marketing, you must understand your consumer base. It is definitely not about what you think and what you want to share. So provide helpful content and share posts which they will find interesting and useful. Tailor your social media pages as per your consumers’ interest as a part of your online promotion techniques.

5. Engage With Your Audience

Interacting with your customers is a vital social media strategy. It is part of your customer service. If you are not interacting with your followers, then they might feel that you don't care about their queries and issues. And gradually they will also feel little or no concern about what you are sharing with them.
You may definitely ignore the irrelevant comments. But do not delete the negative comments, as this will give you a chance to let your users know how you handle an adverse situation.

6. Be Active but do not Spam

To keep your brand active, you must share useful posts and updates in a regular interval. But also be aware that nobody likes spam. So don't post the same information repeatedly or post very often that your social followers find it boring or swamping. This may further lead to loosing some of your hard earned followers.

7. Consistency across all Social Media


When you are working with multiple social networking site, there is a high chance that you will loose uniformity. You must establish a clear idea before setting up the different social accounts.

Some basic steps like using the same business name, profile picture, background image etc. can help you a lot for keeping your brand identity. Also make sure that your message is identical across the different networks.

Also I would suggest that as soon as you decide on your brand name, go to your preferred social media site and register your social name. Because it may not be available by the time you think to set up your blog or website first and then establish your social profile.

Social media sites are meant to become social and develop relationships. So try to add your personal touch into your updates and comments. To be a successful social media marketer, you must understand the emotions of your customers and share information based on their likings.

Social networking sites are constantly evolving to provide the best user experience. So try to remain up to date about the new and future changes to keep your marketing efforts effective.
Hope you will find the article helpful. Also you might have learned some other Social Media do’s and don’ts during your time of using the different social networking sites for business. Please feel free to share your experiences in the comments below.



Author Bio: Manidipa Bhaumik is a passionate & dedicated blogger who enjoys going in-depth of any given topic. She loves to share her knowledge on Blogging, SEO & Affiliate Marketing through her webpage WPBlogging360.com. You can connect with her on Twitter, Facebook and Google+

Social media marketing or SMM is one of the best way for increasing brand awareness and driving huge traffic in the current market. And, we all know that traffic means MONEY. But it is really challenging for a small business owner or a new start-up to drive traffic to their website. Social networks like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Flickr, Youtube are some great sources of getting targeted traffic.