Social Media Best Practices & Posting Guidelines for Beginners

If you post on social media as part of your marketing strategy, you must understand the differences between platforms. Each platform hosts a different audience. The audience on Facebook is not the same audience that is on Twitter. They must be approached with different voices. You wouldn’t talk to your boss the same way to talk to your best friend. Remember, your posts need to be tailored to each audience. To do this, you have to understand why each audience uses the platform, and what’s expected for each platform. Now, I’m not saying you can’t post about the same topic, but the voice in which you write should vary slightly. The goal is to appeal to the mindset of the community you engage with. Below find short summaries of the social environment on the four major social media platforms.

Facebook – Post 5-10 times per week between 1-4pm

People go to Facebook to connect with their friends and family.

It’s important not to interrupt the Facebook community with advertisements for products and services. Think of Facebook as a place to interact with your audience on a personal level. Post about who you are, rather than what you do.

Twitter – Post at least 5 times per day between 1-3pm

Tweet your heart out. This platform doesn’t play favorites.

Your tweets show up in your followers’ news feeds as soon as you hit publish. Unfortunately, they slip out of sight just as quickly. The most beneficial use of time on Twitter is joining discussions using trending hashtags. Twitter also has a powerful prospecting tool called Twitter Advanced Search. This tool allows you to search for users and tweets by location, date, and topic.

LinkedIn – Post 1 time per weekday between 7-8:30am and 5-6pm

LinkedIn is all business, all the time.

It’s a place for professionals to network and gain industry insight. Project yourself as knowledgeable and sincere on LinkedIn. Post what you know and care about. The best thing to do is establish yourself as an expert in your industry. To do this, join discussions and answer questions about your industry.

Google+ – Post 1-5 times per day between 9-11am

Google+ is a hangout!

People are there to discover new things. Explore their interests. Hashtags are important search items, so include them in every post. Think of them as keywords, or as search terms. Google+ allows you to group connections into “circles”. Once that’s done, you can select which circles see which posts. This gives you the ability to modify each post to appeal to different audiences. Google+ is rather new, so engaging now gives you a better chance of establishing a presence on this platform.