Social Media 101

Social Media 101

You might think you get social media, but the chances are you’ve missed some of the basics. Here are the pointers coming from a recent business social media workshop in Dubai.

February 14, 2011 12:47 by Sidra Tariq

DON’Ts

OVERLOAD ON INFORMATION: “You shouldn’t just use social media as an information tool for your company,” says Rauser, while advising brands not too overcrowd their pages with links to their website.

“Provide content that is relevant and don’t be afraid to use other content,” he says. A brand can post an interesting article or a video that can be relevant to it. “That is something we do for our Facebook page. Not all the content on our Facebook page is generated by us. It’s content that we find on the Internet that we think is interesting for our target audience or the people that follow us on our pages.”

FAIL TO KEEP IT UP: Once you begin to interact, don’t stop. “You always have to keep updating the page. As soon as you stop, it’s almost as if your conversation dies.”

FAIL TO BE CRYSTAL CLEAR: Brands have to be “extremely honest” and should not contradict themselves, says Rauser: “We have all these new tools that make it so easy for everyone to communicate and to share messages. If you say something wrong or are dishonest, everyone will know and you can be in deep trouble.”

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Here are a few more tips from Prototype, in case you wanted more:

• Formulate a social media strategy aligned with your brand

• Integrate all of your marketing efforts

• Don’t base your online activities on your competitors

• Be active

• Acknowledge and recognise your audience

• Make sure to respond to dissatisfied customers— even if it means meeting

• Write content worth sharing

• Make it easy for users to participate

• Accept criticism

• Don’t expect instantaneous results