10 Golden Rules of Social Media Marketing

Based on statistics collected in the United States of America, 47% of the Americans say that Facebook is the number one influencer for purchases currently. Meanwhile, 81% of the consumers are influenced by their friends’ posts on social media when purchasing.

Today, the business world is rapidly changing. It has become a necessity for businesses or brands to not only get social but also to stay socially active, relevant and connected. Social media has changed the rules of the marketing game for businesses of all sizes. Unfortunately, there are still business professionals who continue to struggle when it comes to having the right understanding of how to utilize social media to its maximum potential.

For an entrepreneur, one just cannot afford to underestimate the impact of content and social media marketing. It is more vital today than it has ever been and it’s crucial to start focusing some attention to the social networks. However, social media marketing is a double-edged sword. If not used efficiently, effectively and strategically, it might end up being a big  time-waster. To be successful, you must follow the golden rules of social media.

Here are the 10 golden rules of social media marketing:

1. Communicate

Social media marketing is not all about the numbers. Yes, the number of followers or subscribers is important, but it doesn’t mean anything if you can’t communicate with them properly. Communication is essential to any business. If we are to divulge into the meaning of the word “communicate,” it comes from the Latin word “communis” which relates to the word community.

Community and communication are essential to building a loyal audience. Communicating with your audience and not at the audience is the key. Being transparent, honest and genuine with every post and response on social media will build trust and loyalty. Engagement is extremely crucial to have a really strong following on social media.

2. Share

We all know the old saying, “sharing is caring.” Sharing content across social media as a brand is how you can care. Providing value to your audience and potential audience will amplify the excellent content that you have worked so hard in creating. When you share, you create unique experiences across the various social media platforms. Each of the content you share should reach out to your followers and readers.

The biggest thing with social media is that you have to share value to your audience. Instead of just selling on social media, focus on sharing. Share value, content and information that your audience might find valuable and be willing to engage with. Build a brand through social media rather than a sales pitch.

3. Engage With Influencers

I mentioned this earlier in the post, but I think it’s an extremely important concept to keep in mind. To be able to compete with others and to show people that you are worth it, you have to engage with influencers in your space or niche.

You have to prove them that you are a quality source of information and material. If you do, they may share your content with a huge audience of their own. It’s always good to network and build relationships with influencers because they are authority figures that can create value for you down the road.

4. Update On A Regular Basis

Your social media is one of the places where you can give information, share information and share happenings within your business to your audience. It is not enough to just write and post quality content.

To ensure loyalty and trust from your audience, you must write and post content on a regular basis and with purpose. This will make sure that your audience, readers, and community members will be coming back for more. With social media, you have to create a consistent posting schedule so you stay relevant with your audience.

5. Reciprocate

It is not always you who should benefit from others; you should do things for others to benefit as well. Ensure that the content you are sharing is the content that’s going to be beneficial for others. The most important part of this is that you want to utilize social networks for branding and building an audience mores than selling.

Hard selling isn’t the best option on social media, but it can be a major turn off to a specific audience. You need to immerse yourself within the community, chat with your audience, share content and prove that you are worth their time beyond the content that you are sharing with them.

6. Be Authentic

Authenticity is one of the secret ingredients behind every good and valuable social media marketing campaign. Knowing who your audience is the most important aspect. After that, you have to try to locate them online, listen, add value, respond, refrain from spamming them and remember to just be yourself.

Being authentic and real can result in a better and more long-lasting positive result than if you try to be someone or something that you are not. Real recognizes real. If you’ve heard that saying, it’s especially true with social media. Just because you’re behind a keyboard doesn’t mean that you should be someone you aren’t.

7. The People Have The Power

In today’s business trends, consumers have the luxury of being able to interact with your company, brand or service on their terms. Today is the era of consumer empowerment, the traditional advertising tactics of interrupting or talking at customers no longer works.

To develop relationships with the customer, it will require you to develop a deeper connection. This means that the message of your content must be highly targeted, able to resonate quickly and have an incredible value. Your social media platforms need to cater to your followers.

8. Nurture Relationships With Your Followers

Social media is associated with relationships. Some of the best relationships I’ve developed over the years have been nurtured over the years through social network platforms. Building and nurturing relationships are one of the golden rules of social media marketing.

However, everyone always wonders how that can be done. Providing an epic customer experience is the top priority and you should always be listening and responding to your customers. In social media platforms, the use of keywords and mentions is the way to listen to your audience. If they have questions, then you can respond. Answer their queries in a genuine and empathetic way. Showing that there is a real person behind the brand will help nurture the relationships over time.

9. Follow The 4-1-1 Rule

The 4-1-1 rule is based on Twitter engagement, but can still be modified and applied to other social media channels. The rule states that for every self-serving tweet, you should retweet one relevant tweet and most importantly, share four pieces of relevant content written by others. The basic idea is to share more non-promotional posts before you go in for a soft or hard sell.

10. Be The Solution

Consumers always reach out through social media because it’s very accessible and they hope to find solutions to their problems through social media. This is where you come in. You can give a solution to audience’s questions and curiosity with great content, pain points with stellar customer service, brand awareness challenges with targeted social outreach and much more.

For you to be the solution, know the problem first. Put your audience interest first by asking engaging questions, study audience insights on various platforms and analyze your most popular content to help identify areas in which you may grow and expand.

Conclusion

Social media marketing is not as that easy. Understanding the golden rules will teach you what to do and how to do things the right way and be successful. In this post, I shared with you 10 golden rules of social media marketing.