If you’re new to social media marketing, you may be feeling a bit overwhelmed. Perhaps you’re feeling that the whole “social media thing” is for posting nonsense, like what you had for dinner or how much you’re enjoying the weather.

It’s normal to feel overwhelmed, and you may have had a negative experience with social media at first, so you’re a little hesitant to jump in. We totally understand your feelings, hence have created 5 tips to help you win at Social Media Marketing:

1. Avoid “selling”
Social networks are for building communities and adding value. Those that use social media to constantly push their own products or services are not only NOT adding value, but they may be turning off potential prospects. No one likes to be sold to. If you’re not using social media to offer value to your community, then you’re doing yourself and your company a disservice.

2. Engage with your community
Have you ever sent a question to a brand you followed on Twitter or Facebook just to be ignored? It’s infuriating isn’t it? Your community is following you for a reason, to engage with you and be involved. Get involved with your community. Ask questions, answer questions, or just say hi. The FYItag social media platform helps you do just that with a convenient “Participate” tab.

3. Please Don’t Use your Facebook Personal Profile for Business
There’s nothing worse than logging into Facebook and be greeted by sales pitch after sales pitch. Facebook personal profiles are just that – personal. Facebook has three sections…. personal profiles, business pages and groups. If you want to promote your business, then create a business page is the way to go.

4. Be Consistent
To be successful at using social media for business, you must commit. When businesses start their social media campaigns, then stop, then start, you’re actually turning your audience off rather than engaging with them. Remember, the more you put into social media marketing, the more you’ll get out of it. The calendar feature of FYItag makes it very easy to be consistent. You can preplan your updates and schedule them into a calendar format. If you like to use your Outlook calendar, you’ll love the FYItag calendar too!

5. Don’t Spam!
We all hate spammers. Don’t know if you’re spamming? Well, if you send a direct message to someone on Twitter including a sales pitch a link to your website – you’re spamming. If you send a friend request to a fan of your business page so you can get their contact info – you’re spamming. If you @ reply a follower on Twitter with your own sales pitch and link – you’re spamming. In other words, be authentic in your engagements. Sure we all want to generate revenue from social media, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do it. Spamming is definitely the wrong way.

So there you have it – our top 5 tips to win at social media. Have your own tips? Feel free to list them in a comment.

Johnathon Howard
CMO
http://fyitag.com