Some social media basics

People talk to people not brands – and because of this for the corporate accounts we manage I now put little emphasis on ‘replies’ and direct messages and focus a lot more on ‘re-tweets’ and clicks on URLs when measuring success. I also advocate that any corporate feed is supported by individual accounts - @MD_KINE and @KnaufUK is a great example of a managing director and corporate account working hand in hand to achieve a great balance of corporate messaging, discussion, opinion and information sharing. Followers engage with @KnaufUK– and they talk to @MD_KINE.

Facebook isn’t for all brands – if you have a direct sales relationship or an already established loyalty it can be a great tool...but you need to be willing to invest in driving people to the page and keeping them interested with special offers, competitions or rewards.

Content is king but people still have to find you – many brands are just tipping their toe in the water and it’s fine to allow your following to grow organically. However, if you can’t put a budget behind promoting your channels then your expectations need to be realistic as to the potential rate of growth.

It’s time to move on from flag waving – with production costs plummeting, video has suddenly become more accessible to all and we’ve been able to bring to life a company’s news, events and projects. We’ve produced some great videos promoting our clients’ products and services, telling the audience what we want them to know. Now the emphasis is on producing videos that answer the needs of the audience. We all know that videos rank high on search engines so take a step back…think about what your target market is searching on right now and produce content that fits that need.

There are of course many, many more but another thing I have learnt is – try and keep things short and sweet!