Inspired by a list published on AdAge.com by Simon Dumenco, “9 Media Things That Should Be Immediately Regulated,” I hereby give you my list of 7 Things That Should Be Regulated When Posting For Your Small Business (or any sized business for that matter) on social media accounts. Posting for your business can be tricky to navigate at first, but it gets easier with practice (and remembering these reminders). Please note: there is no particular order because these are all important. Well, except for No. 1. That’s pretty important.
7. Henceforth, your posts shall only contain one punctuation character in a row. If you’re announcing specials, you’re understandably excited. As they say, “Use your words;” so, use your words to show your excitement, not your punctuation. Exception: ellipses…
6. Henceforth, you shall use effective descriptors. As Stephen King says, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” Please refrain from making a three-line chain of really awesome, super-great, exceptionally excellent words to get your message across. Pick one that best describes what you want to say and use that (and only that) word. Vary them between sentences if you just can’t play favorites and want to include them all.
5. Henceforth, you shall not ramble. The ratio of number of characters per post to percent of increased engagement varies between Ragan, Short Stack, and Linchpin SEO infographics, but they agree that posts clocking in around 100-150 characters (3 lines of a Facebook update) see more interactions on Facebook. Similarly, about 80-100 characters are ideal for a tweet.
4. Henceforth, you shall not post willy-nilly. Everyone (yes, everyone) will tell you to make a schedule of posts and stick to it. Users will know what to expect on each day, and you won’t realize it’s 3:30 on a Monday afternoon and you haven’t posted anything yet.
3. Henceforth, if you must automate posts, know who/what/where/when. Remember those companies that forgot to “un-schedule” their posts when the tragedy in Boston occurred? Make sure you know what’s going where and when. Also, try your best to be available to make a quick change should something disastrous occur.
2. Henceforth, you shall not bombard the general public with updates. Remember the schedule I spoke of earlier? If you use it, you shouldn’t be guilty of this. Nothing turns people off faster than overloading them with too much content too quickly.
1. Henceforth, you shall be interested in others instead of trying to get them interested in you. You can get more people interested in you by showing interest in them. Think about the last time you were at a networking event and someone was insistent upon forcing their accomplishments on you faster than you could suck down your watery, one-drink-ticket-per-person drink. Don’t be that person online.