10 Commandments of Using Social Media for Company Blog

Updated on January 19th, 2017 by Quertime Writer in Social Media

Blogging is in great demand. Today, most businesses worth their salt are investing their marketing dollars in blogging to bring more traffic to their websites. These businesses are also using social media to promote their blog content to get the desired results from their blogging efforts.

However, social media operates under a set of rules. Every time you share a social post, you will be tried in the court of public opinion. This court is of significant importance as it is getting bigger by the day and also because it’s the people’s court both in letter and spirit; it’s the people who are sitting in judgment. For businesses that don’t follow the guidelines set by this court, the verdicts can be harsher than a court of law.

To prevent your business from facing such consequences, here are the 10 commandments for promoting your business blog on social media:

1. Thou shalt listen to social audience first

The first and the most important commandment of using social media for company blog is to listen to your social audience. Social media is a medium of multi-directional communication. Listening to social consumers will deliver insights that can be used to formulate future marketing strategies.

2. Thou shalt select the right social channels to promote the blog

There are many social channels available like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Pinterest, Quora, and many more. Managing your presence and promoting your blog on all of these channels is a herculean task. You should instead use the most effective channels for promoting your blog.

To pick the right social media channel for promoting your blog, it is important to understand where your prospective customers spend their time. After listening to consumers on social channels, you should easily be able to pinpoint the right social platforms for promoting your business blog.

3. Thou shalt post each new blog post on social channels

There are people who subscribe to your RSS feed, but then there are people who may be interested in your content but may not have subscribed to your blog and are totally unaware of the fact that your blog addresses their issues or concerns. By posting your new blog post on your social channels, you can make sure that these people come across your post. Posting your new blog post on the right social channels will drive more traffic to your blog.

4. Thou shalt respond to all comments

Monitor all comments and respond in a timely manner. When a follower asks you a question about your blog post or comments on your blog post update on social channels, it means he is investing time in interacting with you. Not responding or acknowledging the comment will make him feel that you are ignoring him.

If you receive a positive compliment about your blog post, thank the person. If a follower responds negatively, respond and try to change their perception about your blog/blog post. New research proves that responding to negative feedback online, benefits companies.

5. Thou shalt offer incentives to social followers for subscribing

Research shows that 58% of Facebook users expect exclusive offers from business pages, so consider offering exclusive promotions and offers only to your social media followers. You could even ask your followers to subscribe to your blog in order to receive specific perks.

To grow your subscriber list and increase your blog traffic, offer deals that are exclusive to each network. For instance, create a Facebook contest and make it mandatory for followers to subscribe to your blog in order to be eligible for this contest.

6. Thou shalt keep it small

Using short paragraphs in your posts is the most basic law you need to follow for writing a social media post. So, instead of copy-pasting whole paragraphs from your blog while promoting it on social channels, use smaller attention-grabbing snippets from the post. However, make sure to backlink to the full blog post. This will also help improve your search engine rankings.

7. Thou shalt poll followers for new content ideas

Polls are a highly effective tactic that can be used by businesses to engage with and know the opinions of their audience. You can create a poll on social channels to find the issues your followers want you to address. You can then use these ideas for future content marketing pieces for your blog. By covering topics that you already know your audience wants to hear about, you are increasing your blog traffic and naturally persuading them to subscribe to your blog without being too pushy.

8. Thou shalt repost on social channels

The main goal of writing blog posts is to get more eyes on your content. There is no rule of thumb that says after you promote a blog once, you can’t promote it again. If you have a high-quality, timely blog post, you should repost it on all your social channels. The optimal frequency of posting depends on which social media platforms you are using and time-zones of your followers. You can use an editorial calendar to post on scheduled dates and times.

9. Thou shalt not misuse hashtags

Adding hashtags to your post increases the number of people other than your followers who actually get to see your content. But the important thing is moderation. Hashtags can be perceived as annoying and spammy when used in large numbers.

According to a socialbakers study, posts with 1 or 2 hashtags receive the greatest percentage of engagement, and that percentage starts to decrease for tweets with three or more hashtags. Ensure the hashtag you use in your Facebook post or tweet adds value to your conversation.

10. Thou shalt track everything

Analyzing your social media marketing efforts will give you rare insights into what works for your target audience and how and on which channels should you promote your blog to attract the right kind of audience. Analyze your social platforms to find which kind of posts attracts the most subscribers, leads and sales. Gaining insights into this data will help you formulate your future content marketing strategies and also help in customer service.

By not listening to your social audience you may form wrong social marketing strategies for your blog.

Social media is one of the most lucrative growth channels that any business has at its disposal. In-order to effectively use social media for promoting your blog, strictly follow the above mentioned guidelines.

Author: Michael Georgiou

Michael Georgiou is a dynamic business professional and entrepreneurial guru with a proven success in creative strategy, online branding, project management, and communication projects in both the public and private sectors. He drives Imaginovation’s rapid business growth in marketing and sales due to a multifaceted and versatile communications experience with a reputation for providing innovative turn-key digital solutions, and a steadfast approach for managing teams to provide high quality web products and services in numerous industry verticals.