Social media is literally a world of its own. It’s a vast playground for all types of endeavor, but when you’re using it for business, there is a whole new set of rules to follow if you live in Malaga you need the best marbella online marketing.

This is probably because nobody likes the hard sell, but they’re also suspicious of posts that are insincere and pretentious in order to steer people towards a shopping basket. This means that business owners wishing to engage customers on social media must have a squeaky-clean act and strategy in order not to turn customers off and adversely affect their businesses.

With people spending more and more time on social media, it makes sense from a business perspective to reach your customers this way; any self-respecting business has a Facebook page, and possibly a Twitter, Pinterest and Instagram account as well, dependent on how much time and money they can afford to invest into a public presence.

  1. Keep post regular but don’t bombard

The fastest way to get your ‘followers’ to unfollow you is to fill their newsfeeds with posts in quick succession. If your updates are too frequent, it’s going to irritate. A balance needs to be struck so that you are seen to be present and engaging your viewers with relevant and interesting information, but if you flood their newsfeeds, they’re likely to ignore you permanently.

A good way to get around this without letting your fits of inspiration go to waste is to create the posts but not share them immediately. You can use scheduling on Facebook to set dates and times for your posts do go live.

2. Don’t get hashtag happy! #socialmediasuicide

What is it about hashtags? They have a curious ability to get right up people’s noses. If done properly, (i.e. with wit) they can raise a wry smile and a healthy (if fleeting and superficial) level of respect. If done badly, you can even look a little crazy. God forbid you make an unfunny hashtag.

Dependent on the social media network you are using, you can get away with different quantities of hashtags. The general rules go something like this:

Twitter – don’t use more than 2 hashtags. Facebook – hashtags can annoy your readers, stick to one maximum, and don’t litter every post with them. With Twitter they have a purpose, and unless your Facebook is linked to your Twitter, they can even be a little pointless. With Facebook, they tend to come across as ‘ironic’, which is fine if you get it right, but and the chances of you getting it right when you’ve put ten in a row into one post are slim to none.

Instagram is the place for hashtags, where you can get away with a huge number compared to the previous two networks mentioned. Around eleven hashtags is acceptable in Instagram, and this actually increases engagement.

3. Don’t leave enquirers hanging

Your potential customers are often a fussy bunch – their expectations are pretty high, going by the conclusions of various social media studies.

We know that if you spam them even slightly they may cut you off mercilessly, but if they want to ask you something, you’d better answer them sharpish… like, within the hour. These kind of expectations can vary across social media networks, with Twitter users being the ones to expect the most timely response; however, it pays (sometimes literally) to have one eye on your social media and respond to enquiries (or even simply acknowledge comments on your posts) as quickly as you possibly can.

4. Don’t hard sell! Be seen to value entertainment and education before profits

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again. Social media hard selling is a turn off. Your potential customers will either scroll right past you, unfollow you or unlike you, none of which is great for business.

You need to be seen to provide them with relevant, interesting and educational content. There is a lot of evidence to suggest that sharing others’ content will get you bonus points, whereas if you share only your own content the majority of the time, it might look like hard sell disguised as education.

This does depend on the type of business you are running though; use your own judgment. If you have a large following already or a niche market, you may be able to get away with sharing more of your own content than anyone else’s.

5. The giant that is Facebook has its own set of rules

Liking your own posts is a real turn-off to potential customers. Do we need to explain why? Well, suffice to say it comes off a little desperate. It may help the post to appear in the newsfeed again but people will notice that you’ve liked your own post and that’s really not what you want. Likewise, don’t beg for likes, comments and shares.

Be careful who you’re tagging. It always pays to keep it relevant and ask permission before you tag any customers or associates. Offending people inadvertently this way will lose you likes and damage your reputation fast. People can wish to be very private online, for various reasons.

Another main point to consider here is that if you tag somebody, they’ll be notified about every comment or update on that post. This can be perceived as very annoying if the tagged person has no interest in the post. It’s a little intrusive and will look like shameless promotion – especially if it is.

These are just a few of the ‘rules’ that constitute social media etiquette. There are many more though, and they keep on changing with the creation of new apps, sites and trends. Optimasit have the best online marketing in Marbella, keep our fingers on the pulse so that our clients’ reputations are never on the line. If you’re looking for a bit of assistance with your social media, reputation management or any of your marketing for that matter, look no further.