A Guide To Small Business Social Media Etiquette [Infographic]

This week’s Connection Thursday brings you information about business social media etiquette.  Our guest blogger is Jennifer Landry.  Jennifer is a dedicated web journalist from Malibu, California. She specializes in articles about business management and the current social media landscape. She welcomes you to connect with her on Twitter.

A Guide To Small Business Social Media Etiquette

As social media tightens its grip on us as a society, there becomes a question of what is right, and what is wrong, to post, tweet, or share on the various social media sites that you frequent. The purpose of social media is to connect, and through the years, it has become an important method for people to do so. Naturally, social media was adopted by businesses to do exactly what their potential customers were doing socially, but there was no book to rely on, so most interactions between businesses and consumers via social media was experimental, and very awkward.

Years later, the uses for social media–from a business’s perspective–are endless. As they become apparent, there still needs to be some sort of set of guidelines to stick to, so as to not alienate potential customers. Because nothing is set in stone, there are multiple sides to each argument. Should I ask my followers for some sort of interaction on every post? Should I ask them for some sort of interaction at all? What it comes down to is the customer, and how they perceive each post as it flashes across their screen from day-to-day, hour-by-hour.

As each social media site jockeys for position in the race for steady users, businesses have to familiarize themselves with each one, and develop a strategy to interact with their followers. In this infographic, we describe ways for businesses to get the most out of each site. What’s more, the infographic defines manners of sharing content that will be the best received by other businesses, in addition to the customers you seek to share with.

Social media’s many uses have yet to be realized, and that’s an exciting fact. While many worry themselves with crafting the perfect tweet, or interacting tirelessly with an audience of people, there are nuances on each site that need to be addressed in order for each message to reach the maximum amount of people possible. Interacting on social media isn’t so much a science, as it is an artform, and this infographic is designed to best prepare companies to take advantage of these nuances on each site, and to exploit them, for the benefit of the company, and their respective followers.

In the end, the fluidity of what is expected–in turns of social media “etiquette”–plays a major role in defining the social media strategies for most businesses. The key to creating the best one possible is a matter of utilizing tools available, and realizing that the demands of the consumer often change at the drop of a hat.