In today’s business practices, having a strong social media presence is imperative to gain access to new markets and potential customers. Most people are on at least two social networking platforms. For businesses, especially startups, it’s crucial to build a following on social networking platforms so you can boost your business and grow further. With the right practices, your social media can do the work for you when it comes to getting new leads and high appraise for your business.

Here are 5 DO’s to implement into your social media practices:

• Visual content is key. People are more likely to look at pictures and videos than read a long, text heavy posts. Posting more images will help catch your reader’s attention.
• Shareable content. Create content that is easily sharable such as infographics or quality video clips. This will help spread your business brand naturally/organically.
• Keep up to speed. Social media is always rapidly changing and it’s important to stay in tune with what is new. Stay on top of trends.
• Engage. Interact with followers and commenters. It shows you care and are involved with your follower base as well as pull in new leads.
• Consistency. All profiles should be consistent for followers to find easily across all social media platforms. Have one voice to spread throughout  all platforms.

Here are 5 DON’Ts you should remove from your social media practices:

• Automate. Humanize your social media profiles so fans feel like they are interacting with a person, not a robot.
• Over sell. Keep sales posts to a minimum. The best rule to follow is the 1 in 7 rule. For every 7 posts, only 1 should be a sales pitch.
• Delete negative comments. Use this opportunity to fix a problem head-on and show transparency.
• Wing it. Have a specific, goal-oriented plan. Plan and schedule posts so content is prepared in advance.
• Spam. Don’t flood every social media account all the time with the same content over and over.

Social media is a great tool for all businesses to utilize. It provides instant metrics and can help spread brand awareness further than one sales rep could alone. With the right content and practices, social media can help build a growing brand and expand its reach worldwide.

To learn more about growing your business read our blog post Customers Share Their Opinions on Meal Deliveries  or Meal Delivery Industry is Taking Over to help build better customer feedback.