December 1st, 2010 by Nick

Social media marketing (SMM) is not an exact science. Nevertheless, some types of behaviour on social media networking sites are almost guaranteed to prove disappointing. This means that they should never be employed by companies or the firms to which they outsource what is clearly a specialist activity. Following poor practices can easily get a site the wrong type of visitor, or far fewer visitors than should be the case. Either way, respecting the relevant etiquettes is a great way of avoiding this kind of debacle.

At Searchengineoptimization.co.uk we have the experience and expertise to deliver focused and tailored campaigns which gradually improve the performance of a site. It is also the case that these campaigns are adjustable and can therefore adapt to transformations in the sphere of search such as the shifts in the popularity of the social media sites.

It is instructive to illustrate these general points with an example. It is often the case that a campaign is conducted on more than one social networking site, hence this post will focus solely on a Twitter campaign. A Twitter campaign can be derailed in several ways, but adhering to good practice can prevent this:

• It is vital that a campaign is planned and implemented with a clear sense of direction. In practice, this must be related to the need to aim the campaign squarely at defining, learning from and expanding the target audience. Communication between a site owner and a SEO firm can establish what the target audience for the goods and/or products of the firm is. The campaign can then locate the places on Twitter where individuals belonging to this group are present
• Each tweet must be carefully considered. For retweeting purposes, it is often best to keep the messages down to 12 or 15 characters below the official limit of 140 characters. The more tweets you make, the easier being succinct becomes. This means that other things as well as brevity deserve attention. Every tweet must be purposeful and aim to achieve something positive

• Only a small proportion of tweets should be directly self-promotional. It is important that most tweets should not be irritating to ordinary users. Direct Messages should be used very sparingly, if at all. The majority of Twitter users do not come on the site to purchase products, so subtlety is all. It is a great idea to ask members of the target audience questions about their tastes. Commenting on industry news by promoting blog posts can also be a good technique if these tweets are interspersed with others

• Tweets should never depart from the sphere of relevance. There is no point in tweeting about the weather or about how you got to work. The key is to remember what kinds of tweets you find inane or tedious to read. This kind of tweet should be avoided, and you should never retweet them. Each retweet you make should reflect well on your taste as well as underling your collaborative and friendly mindset.

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