By Melissa Walsh

Social Media Marketing (SMM) Etiquette

“Facebook is like a coffee shop. Everyone is there for his or her own reasons, but it is a great place to strike up a conversation.” 
— Shama Hyder Kabani in The Zen of Social Media Marketing

The first rule of SMM etiquette is keeping in mind that people aren’t using SMM to shop; they’re there for conservation and to express their point of view. Your market prospects don’t want to be marketed to on SMM. They are marketing themselves as, not just who they are, but as who they want to be and how they want to be perceived. SMM forums, Kabani explains, are tidy niche markets in a virtual coffee shop. If you push sales and in-your-face advertising, they’ll feel awkward and leave the coffee shop.

To interact with your prospects using SMM, you must identify closely with your followers, so closely that your brand becomes part of their identity. So while being mindful that overall trust in advertising is eroding and that your target market prospects enter into SMM for conversation, follow these SMM etiquette guidelines:

1. Don’t attempt to fool or manipulate a market; it will only backfire on you.
2. Don’t “like” and “follow” everything that enters your suggestions feed. Be strategic and selective.
3. Respect people’s virtual space.
4. Don’t make gaining traffic your chief goal. Retain traffic with quality content and interaction.
5. Use your real name. People like personal interaction.
6. Balance being proactive with not being pushy.
7. Avoid infomercials. Your SMM video posts should be no more than two to three minutes in duration with continual action depicting a glimpse into the “secret” world of your product/service.

Kabani stresses, when employing SMM in your marketing strategy, understand how it differs from traditional marketing communications. While traditional marketing speaks loudly to a market, even sometimes shouts at and dominates, SMM thrives in a community of friendly conversation with a market. So to become considered good company among your market, listening and responding in a way that makes prospects feel heard go a long way. 

In other words, while traditional marketing pushes a product/service out to a market through display advertising and direct sales copy, SMM pulls a market into a message through relationship-building and spontaneous word-of-mouth market penetration.

By Melissa Walsh

“If eyes are the window to a person’s soul, a website is the window to a company’s soul.” 
— Shama Hyder Kabani in The Zen of Social Media Marketing


EMS of Websites

SMM should be thoughtfully incorporated into a content marketing strategy that points prospects to your website, which is your point of sale. Therefore SMM should always lead attracted prospects to your website content. 

Kabani says, “Content is king; relevancy is power.” Be sure your content is found and shared easily by your market by 

1. Applying SEO (search-engine optimization) principles — namely, including target search keywords and phrases and and tagging your site content with descriptive topics
2. “Listening” to your traffic — measuring you ROI by analyzing your content likes, shares, tweets, comments and known conversions.

Your website is the EMS of your product/service.

E - Educating prospects.

M - Marketing to prospects.

S - Selling to prospects.

EMS is achieved by including all five elements of an effective website:

1. Design for a great first impression. Present navigation and content options in an intuitive interface with a clean, uncluttered backdrop of consistent branding, color scheme and graphics.
2. Structure the page layout and elements virtually to hold the hand of prospects through your overview presentation of your product/service through point of sale or other action decision.
3. Present clear and concise content that differentiates your product/service.
4. Optimize traffic to your website with fresh content (blog posts) that applies easy-to-read structure, relevant keywords and metadata.
5. Maintain your website consistently, ensuring it remains living and interactive.