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Social Media and Email Marketing – How To Leverage Them

30 Monday Mar 2015

Posted by in Best Practices, Email Marketing, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest

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Want to know how to grow your email list?

Are you using social media to support your email list growth?

If you’re thinking of marketing tactics such as email and social media as two separate entities, you’re missing out on a lot of benefits.

In this article you’ll discover tips for using social media to improve your email marketing.

improve email marketing with social media

Discover how to improve your email marketing with social media.

What You Need to Get Started

There are two things you ideally need to make most of the tips in this article. In general, both will help you grow your email list.

A Lead Magnet

A lead magnet is a freebie you offer people in exchange for their email address. The freebie can be an ebook, whitepaper, report, access to a tool, template, video, presentation, course, etc. You can see a lead magnet in action on the homepage of Social Media Examiner.

social media examiner lead magnet

Example of a lead magnet promotion at the top of Social Media Examiner.

You should create your lead magnet with your ideal email subscriber and customer in mind. For example, if you want CEOs interested in social media to subscribe to your email list, create lead magnets about social media geared towards CEOs instead of people who work for them.

If you decide to use more than one lead magnet, you may want to create a resources section, learning center or another similar area on your website to help people find all of your freebies.

Visual.ly, for example, offers several lead magnets in their content hub. When you download one of their lead magnets, you’re taken to a squeeze page—the next thing you need for your own email marketing.

A Squeeze Page

A squeeze page is a landing page dedicated to converting visitors into email subscribers. Ideally, your squeeze page should include some information about your lead magnet and an opt-in form to capture your visitors’ information and email.

visually squeeze page

Example of a squeeze page for email subscriber opt-ins.

If you need to qualify leads for your products or services, you may want to include a couple of questions to find out who the subscriber is and what his or her needs are. But if your main goal is simply to grow your email list, fewer questions will lead to more subscribers.

Armed with the URL to your latest lead magnet squeeze page(s), here are some ways to use social media to grow your email list.

#1: Facebook Promotion Options

Facebook Page Short Description

You have the opportunity to share URLs in two places on your Facebook page. One of those is in the main website field for your page and the other is in your page’s short description. This is a great place to share the URL for your lead magnet.

The short description field is limited to 160 characters, so use them wisely to describe your business and get people to your lead magnet.

Facebook Page Custom Tabs

Custom tabs are applications you add to your Facebook page to create a specific functionality. For example, the Convince & Convert Facebook page uses a custom tab to house an opt-in form for their email newsletter.

convince & convert custom tab

Example of an opt-in form on a Facebook page custom tab.

Find out if your email marketing software provides a Facebook app to create an opt-in form on a Facebook page custom tab or you can use an app like Woobox Static HTML to display an opt-in form on your own website.

Facebook Page Call-to-Action Button

The Facebook call-to-action button can also be used to direct people to your squeeze page. Simply use the Sign Up text option and link it to your squeeze page.

call to action button set up

How to set up a call-to-action button on your Facebook page.

To encourage people to click on the call-to-action button, you can create a custom Facebook cover photo that promotes your lead magnet and points to the button.

Facebook Page Cover Photo

Speaking of the cover photo, you can also use the cover photo’s description to link to your squeeze page like Mari Smith does.

cover image with link in description

Example of a Facebook page cover photo promoting a lead magnet.

Even if you don’t use your cover photo to promote your lead magnet, you should at least update it to include a link to your website so people can click through to it.

Facebook Advertising

Facebook ads are a perfect way to promote your lead magnet and get your ideal subscribers signed up to your email list. Formstack‘s ad is a perfect example of promoting a free ebook, using a great image and a download button as the call to action.

formstack lead magnet in facebook ad

Example of a Facebook ad promoting a lead magnet.

Be sure to use the interests and demographics targeting options to go beyond age and location targeting to qualify the leads who see the invitation to your email list. The more qualified your leads, the better your email marketing will perform.

facebook ad targeting

How to use targeting options for a Facebook ad.

You can also upload your current email list as a custom audience and create a lookalike audience to target people similar to your current email subscribers.

facebook lookalike audience

How to create a lookalike audience from your email list.

Choose Lookalike Audience in your ad’s targeting options in the Custom Audiences field to promote your lead magnet to them.

Only use this option if you feel that your current email list is fully qualified for your business. Otherwise, you simply attract more unqualified email leads.

#2: Twitter Promotion Options

Twitter Bio

Similar to using the short description on your Facebook page, you can use your Twitter bio to promote your lead magnet and leave your website field for your main website URL.

link in twitter bio

Example of a link used in the Twitter bio.

Placing the URL of your squeeze page in your Twitter bio is particularly useful because only the link in your Twitter bio shows up in places like Twitter search results.

twitter bios in search results

Example of how a link in a Twitter bio appears in Twitter search results.

For maximum effectiveness, avoid including hashtags and other Twitter profile @username handles. That makes certain there’s only one clickable item in your Twitter bio for people to act on.

Twitter Lead Generation Card

The Twitter lead generation card is a feature that lets you collect email addresses directly from within Twitter. You’ll find it in the Twitter ads section and the setup will look like this.

twitter lead generation card

How to set up a Twitter lead generation card.

Additional configurations for specific CRM software (like Salesforce) can be found in the Twitter Help Center’s guide to setting up a lead generation card.

Otherwise, you download the list of email addresses from users who opt in from your card and upload it to your email marketing service. You can find your leads by going to your cards and clicking on the Download Leads icon (the one with the right arrow).

exporting leads

The location of your Twitter lead generation card submissions to export.

To get exposure for your Twitter lead generation card, simply tweet it to your audience or promote it using Twitter advertising.

Twitter Advertising

To promote your Twitter lead generation card or tweets with links to your latest lead magnets, you can use Twitter advertising. Just like Facebook ads, you can target qualified audiences. On Twitter, you do this with interests and followers of other Twitter accounts (like your competitors).

twitter ad targeting

How to target specific audiences for a Twitter ad campaign.

As with Facebook, you can market to custom audiences on Twitter. Start by uploading your current email list to Twitter’s audience manager. Choose your email list as a tailored audience, and then check the box for targeting users similar to your tailored audience. Then select your email list as a tailored audience again to exclude these users from ad targeting (since you don’t need them to sign up again).

You can also create a tailored audience from your customer list to ensure qualified subscribers by targeting your ad to a similar audience.

#3: LinkedIn Promotion Options

LinkedIn Publications & Projects

On your personal LinkedIn profile, you can add a Publications section that allows you to link directly to your ebooks, whitepapers, etc. You can also use this to link directly to your lead magnet squeeze pages.

linkedin publications

Example of the LinkedIn Publications section linking to a lead magnet.

If your lead magnet is a tool, like a free calculator, add a link to your tool in the Projects section of your profile.

linkedin profile editing

Where you can find the Publications and Projects sections to add them to your profile.

You can add both of these sections to your profile by using the guided profile editing option.

For more visibility, add your best lead magnet to the website links in your Contact Info. This adds it to the top of your public profile so visitors who aren’t logged into LinkedIn can still see it.

LinkedIn Advertising

For businesses looking to target specific professionals as email subscribers,LinkedIn advertising offers the best professional ad audience targeting options to help you get the ideal email subscribers on your list.

linkedin targeting options

How to target specific audiences with LinkedIn advertising.

Additional Opportunities on Social Media

Additional ways to promote your lead magnets and grow your email list with social media include the following.

  • Pin a great image of your lead magnet to your Pinterest profile and link that image to your lead magnet squeeze page.
  • Share a great image of your lead magnet to your Instagram profile andtell people to click the link in your bio. Temporarily (or permanently) change the link in your Instagram profile to point to your lead magnet squeeze page. Be sure that your squeeze page is responsive, since most people from Instagram will be viewing it on their mobile device.
  • Create videos on Vine and Snapchat telling your fans to download your latest lead magnet. Make sure your URL is short, easy to say, and easy to remember, like yourdomain.com/freereport.

#4: Make Sharing Easy

You don’t have to rely solely on your own promotion tactics to get more people to your squeeze pages. You can enlist the help of people who’ve already downloaded your free ebook or report.

Let’s say you offered a free ebook as a lead magnet. Simply create a landing page that thanks people for reading your latest ebook and add social sharing buttonsthat allow them to share the squeeze page for your lead magnet with their own audiences.

To get people to share on Twitter, pre-populate a Twitter Share button with custom text and the URL of your squeeze page. Make sure the URL being shared is the squeeze page of your lead magnet. Otherwise, you’ll end up with people sharing your thank-you page.

tweet button set up

How to set up a Twitter Share button for your lead magnet squeeze page.

Now, the tweet automatically points to your squeeze page!

sample tweet

Sample tweet configured in Twitter Share button setup.

You can configure a Facebook Like button in much the same way.

facebook like button set up

How to set up a Facebook Like button for your lead magnet squeeze page.

Add a LinkedIn Share button.

linkedin share button set up

How to set up a LinkedIn Share button for your lead magnet squeeze page.

Include a Pinterest Pin It button.

pinterest button set up

How to set up a Pinterest Pin It button for your lead magnet squeeze page.

Put It All Together

Once you’ve begun collecting your high-quality leads, there are a number of ways you can use social media to impact your email marketing campaigns.

For example, you can use your Twitter audience to split test email subject lines. If you send your experimental tweets through Buffer, you’ll get the following analytics for each tweet.

buffer metrics

Buffer analytics for a tweet.

The tweet with the most engagement can be considered the best headline, and the best headline should be used as the best email subject line.

Or you can get more traction for current email campaigns by targeting your email subscribers with social ads on Facebook and Twitter. Make sure the campaign and your social ads use the same images, call to action, etc., so your subscribers are presented with a similar message no matter where they see it.

What do you think? Have you learned a few ways social media can help grow your email list and reach your email subscribers? Do you have additional tips?Please share them in the comments!

Shared with permission via SM Examiner

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The one tip you absolutely need for Pinterest marketing.

12 Friday Sep 2014

Posted by in Pinterest

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Pinterest leadsLast month, 14% of our website visitors AND new contacts came from Pinterest. Pretty good, right?

Well, for one of our clients, 48 percent of his traffic 57% of new contacts came from Pinterest. Insane!

How do we do it, you ask? Well, it has a little to do with the industry. This particular client is a pharmacist and nutritional counselor, so it’s not too hard to find a topic that will really do well on Pinterest.

Every month, we create a new piece of downloadable content for his website. Often, our ideas are inspired by what we see on Pinterest. For instance, if we see that a pin on featuring smoothie recipes is really popular on Pinterest, we might create a collection of ten smoothie recipes.Because of the focus of our client, we’ll make them healthy smoothies. They have to taste great AND be good for you. Tricky, but not impossible (we know because we did this). Also, one of them is now what I eat for lunch. Every. Single. Day.

I digress. Now that we have our offer, our landing page, our emails, blog post, and follow-up workflow (all done easily in HubSpot), we have to get the word out. It is worth noting here, that your landing pages have to be good for this to work. But, of course yours are!

For this client, the best channel is clearly Pinterest – though we do use others, too.

Here it Is – Pinterest Lead Generation Magic

We could just use the blog post image (which, by the way,  is sized and designed for best impact on Pinterest). BUT, we find that having many different pins yields much better results.

It’s easy to see how this could work for our “Smoothie Recipes” ebook. A gorgeous photo of each one (you can usually find something on BigStock, but sometimes we have to make our own) with some text overlay and a great description gives you ten pinnable images. Add in the blog post image for 11. Create a few more, changing up colors, fonts, and text and  you could easily have 20 or more for this one offer.

Now, schedule your pins throughout the month (we use ViralTag), making sure to pin to group boards and any of your own applicable boards.  In your description, make sure to mention that this recipe is available as part of  a free download and include a strong call to action, like “grab them now and have one for lunch!”

That’s it! You didn’t expect actual magic, did you? Just like all good inbound marketing, it takes time, but not a lot of money.

Make it Work for You

This example of the smoothie recipes is almost too easy. I know. But that doesn’t mean your landscaping company has no choice but to create ebooks about smoothies! Let’s say you created an ebook on starting a vegetable garden. The planning process may be broken down into  a few steps. Then there is preparation, a trip to the nursery or hardware store, etc. Each of those steps could use its own pinnable image. You could either create one template and change out the text. Or, you could use colorful images of vegetables and gardens with some text outlining a specific tip or step in the process.

And that, my friends, is my #1 tip for how to get massive numbers of leads from Pinterest.

The Most User Requested Apps Have Arrived on Hootsuite!!

21 Wednesday May 2014

Posted by in Best Practices, Bloging, Content Marketing, Pinterest

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appdirectory-wave19-header

The HootSuite App Directory announces the addition of four new apps designed to help streamline communications and increase productivity.

Users have asked and we’ve delivered; the new Gmail and ViralTag for Pinterest apps represent our dedication to create a platform that caters to user needs. With over 13,000 votes submitted to the HootSuite Feedback Forums, these highly requested apps have arrived in the HootSuite App Directory.

Along with these much anticipated apps, we also introduce two new marketing apps, Vidcaster and Shopseen, that will help enhance your social marketing.

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Introducing Gmail

For some people, getting updated could mean switching between Twitter, Facebook, and other tabs just to see their latest feeds. With the HootSuite dashboard, we put all your social networks into one view and now, emails as well!

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Read, write and respond to emails from your gmail accounts directly in the dashboard. Click to enlarge.

The Gmail app for HootSuite allows you to monitor all of your points of communication within one central dashboard. Never again will you have to take your eyes off another video on your Facebook feed for an urgent email. Simply tilt your vision a little to the side and you can multitask with optimal efficiency. You have the ability to read, reply, and delete emails from the dashboard. So if you’ve been too busy tweeting up a storm on Twitter, you can now give your overloaded inbox some much needed attention alongside your social media. Try the new Gmail app now and you’ll achieve inbox zero in no time.

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Introducing ViralTag for Pinterest

The ViralTag for Pinterest app allows you to schedule new pins right from the HootSuite dashboard.
The ViralTag for Pinterest app allows you to schedule new pins right from the HootSuite dashboard.

Have you ever wondered how some users on Pinterest gained their large fanbase? The key is to actively engage followers with new content. Now you can do that without manually pinning a new photo every hour. The new ViralTag for Pinterest app in HootSuite will allow users to easily schedule, share and analyze their pins on the dashboard.

When a clothing brand wants to introduce a new season of garments, this could mean several photos to share with their followers. To keep the momentum, users can choose to schedule photos periodically so that viewers aren’t visually overwhelmed by a single blast of updates. So how can you further promote your content? Brands and companies can now share their pins across all the social networks in HootSuite to push promotions for greater reach. Try the new ViralTag for Pinterest app.

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Vidcaster

In an interactive age, photos are not enough to tell a story. The use of video has become more prevalent in social media engagement. You can now easily distribute your Vidcaster videos across all your social networks in the HootSuite dashboard.

Easily view and share your Vidcaster videos across your social networks
Easily view and share your Vidcaster videos across your social networks

With the Vidcaster App, a social media manager can not only view and share videos, but access analytics to track engagement and viewership. Vidcaster provides you with the data to create videos that appeal most to your audience. Discover when your viewers drop off your videos and which videos are gaining the most attention. Improve the content you share with your followers. Install the Vidcaster App now.

Shopseen

The more people that see an item for sale, the more likely and quickly that item will be sold. Whether you run an online store or just want to get rid of some old clothes, it’s no surprise you’ve posted your items on multiple sites like eBay, Shopify and Etsy. But how do you keep track of all your listings?

You have the ability to share your listings with all your social networks in HootSuite
You have the ability to share your listings with all your social networks in HootSuite

The new Shopseen app lets you monitor all your listings in one stream in the HootSuite dashboard. You can keep track of inventory and orders, so you know when your hot items are running low. While often the issue for store owners is the lack of traffic to their listings. Using the Shopseen app, you can increase visibility by promoting your listings across all the social networks in HootSuite with one post. Generate more revenue and expand your reach, try out the new Shopseen app.

Did you know that our App Directory has 65 apps that help enhance your brand presence and enrich your social experience? Check them out today.

Three Social Media Rules Your Business Needs to Break

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Best Practices, community manager, Facebook, LInkedIn, Online Marketing, Pinterest, Yelp, YouTube

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social media rules to break

If you stay up to date on social media trends and advice, you have likely heard that you need to post a lot of content, get as many fans/followers as you can, and post when most of your fans are online. Rules are meant to be broken, and I’ll explain why it is necessary to break each of these rules. 

1. Post a lot of content

Yes, you need to post content. A lot of it. But this stress on always posting can result in substandard content. On Facebook, you should never post more than twice a day, and even twice a day can be too much. Instead, aim for 5-7 times a week. When you post too much content, you increase your chance that you are just adding to the social media “noise”. Instead focus your effort on creating smaller amounts of high quality content. Quality over quantity.

Why to break this rule
The Facebook algorithm works in a way that it tries to guess what you want to see. One way this is accomplished is that if you normally click on a business’ Facebook page, it is more likely to show you their content. If your business is posting too much low quality content, people will stop clicking. And when you actually do post good content, less fans will see it.

Real world example
There is a restaurant I frequent that I “like” on Facebook. They post any and everything on their Facebook page (they post about 5-10 times a day), whether it is related to the restaurant or not. The result is that I NEVER see their content in my news feed because I first ignored their nonsense posts. What good is my like if they never get their message to me?

2. Get as many fans as you can

We all want more fans. But if these fans are never going to purchase your product or service, what good are they? Social media can easily become a popularity contest: “we have more fans than you.” But worthless fans are, well, worthless. Actually, they can be much worse than worthless….

Why to break this rule
Remember that Facebook algorithm? Another way it works is that when you post content, it shows it to a handful of your fans. If these fans interact with your content, Facebook then shows it to more of your fans. If you have fans that don’t actually like your product/service, they won’t interact with your posts. This means that it will be more difficult to reach your fans who actually are actually interested in your business.

Real world example
While doing consulting work with an Italian restaurant, we quickly learned that if we focused our Facebook advertising to the local area, we received two-three “likes” for every dollar we spent. When we just aimed for total likes, we doubled that number. We could have spent a relatively small amount of money and gotten hundreds of likes. The problem was that the likes all came from Italy, a demographic that was unlikely to ever visit the restaurant or interact with the content. Aim for quality fans over a large quantity of fans.

3. Always post when the most fans are online

You want to get your message out to fans, and you want that message to reach the most screens as possible. Knowing when your fans are online is essential. The Facebook newsfeed works in a way that rewards current content, and makes older content unlikely to show in a person’s newsfeed.

Why to break this commandment
You certainly need to post when most of your fans are online, but you do not need to do it religiously. Focus most of your posting at peak hours, but switch up your timing once or twice a week. This is important because certain fans have different Facebook use habits. This means that if you always post at the same time, you are likely missing fans that have different schedules.

Real world example
We found that a sports rehabilitation physician had more success with his posts after he varied up his posting schedule. He often included exercise tips, and saw his engagement increase after he started posting later in the day. By posting later in the day, he was able to reach fans that otherwise had been missing his posts. Now, these fans are more likely to see all of his posts, no matter the time of day he posts.

 

Ask Pinterest Anything? Site Tests Q&A Feature

19 Monday May 2014

Posted by in Pinterest

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Jelly, Quora, Yahoo (sometimes to absurd ends), and others have looked to question-and-answer services as a way to boost user engagement and advance conversations. Now another player could be entering the fray: Pinterest has confirmed to us it is testing out a new Q&A feature, too.

“We’re always gathering feedback from Pinners to make Pins more useful,” a spokesperson tells us. “We’re currently testing the ability to ask and answer questions in a more structured way on Pins, with a small group of Pinners. We don’t have any additional details to share at this time, but we’ll keep you posted.”

The feature was first pointed out to us by Tom Waddington — a UK-based developer and designer who has been known to spot other upcoming social network developments by looking behind the scenes.

In a blog post, he writes that he got his first hint of it while digging through the Pinterest analytics for Cut Out + Keep, a craft tutorial community that he co-founded, and noticing a new option called “Questions.”

It linked only to a blank page with a Questions tab:

Pinterest Questions

But it tipped him off to look through Pinterest’s code to see what else was there. “I took a look through the code, and found a whole load of references to a feature that looks almost ready for release,” he writes.

There is code in there for users ask questions about the pins that they are viewing, and code for the original Pinner to get a notification to answer the question. Among the 100 or so references to Questions is code for Questions to appear on the web site, as well as iOS and Android apps.

(It’s not clear whether that “original” will be the person you follow who posted something, the very first person to pin something to Pinterest, or even the originator of the image in question — eg, Who will answer my questions about pickling rainbow chard: my friend Jacqueline, her connection Mattie, or theyummybits.com?)

And it looks like Pinterest will try to detect whether a user is asking a question rather than simply commenting, and will be prompted to confirm that is indeed what it is. “All the usual functions to delete, report and like/unlike questions are present in the code,” he writes.

Of course, it’s not a given that just because you can use social networks or any website to answer questions, you will. Facebook had high hopes for its own Questions feature, which lasted for all of two years before it started to shut most of the functionality down. Google Answers also been retired. It will be worth watching how new app Jelly — perhaps a closer comparison to Pinterest’s Q&A ethos, given the visual anchor – will develop longer term with user traction.

On the other hand, what’s interesting about a Q&A feature is that it is one more way, in addition to basic comments, that users will be able to put more text into a site that has been largely built around images.

It will also encourage people to engage more with the content — engagement being one of the key metrics for social media sites to demonstrate how attentive their monthly active users really are.

It also helps pin down (pun!) and make more useful something that people have already been doing on the site informally: asking questions through the comments section. If you are a brand, this could end up being a golden opportunity to connect with customers. It’s the more open-ended counterpart compared to some of the other features like Guided Search, which “steers” you in certain directions as it focuses your searches on the site

Things to keep in mind when monetizing your Pinterest account

24 Thursday Apr 2014

Posted by in Pinterest

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“With great power, comes great responsibility.”  This philosophy doesn’t just apply to superheroes that have been bitten by radioactive spiders, it also applies to Pinterest influencers, accounts with several thousand up to millions of followers. If you’re one of these Pinterest superstars you might be thinking of monetizing your Pinterest account but are you putting your account at risk?

If you’re not a Pinterest influencer with several hundred thousand or millions of followers, you might be wondering how they did it. Here are a few possible ways:

  • They were very early adopters of Pinterest and have been building their accounts for years.
  • They have had their account featured by Pinterest though email campaigns and other sources.
  • They have teamed up on group boards with others to build their followers together.
  • They have a large online following that they brought to Pinterest too.

Pinterest influencers are sometimes approached by brands and PR agencies to leverage their Pinterest following in exchange for some sort of compensation, sometimes monetary compensation.  This practice has the potential to quickly lead to spammy behavior. For example, if a company approached an influencer to pin their product and offered to pay them each time they pinned their product making it visible to their large number of followers, it’s easy to see how this could get out of hand very quickly.

To prevent this, Pinterest has established an Acceptable Use Policythat addresses directly compensating Pinterest users for pinning, following or unfollowing. Not adhering to the policy could result in something as serious as the violating Pinterest account being shut down permanently.

This doesn’t mean that Pinterest influencers can never work with agencies or brands, to avoid the risk of having their account shut down, they should adhere to Pinterest’s acceptable use policy. So before you jump at an offer from a brand or agency wanting to pay you because of your level of Pinterest influence, pause and make sure that the deal doesn’t violate the policy.

There is some confusion regarding the policy as to what really is and isn’t acceptable to Pinterest. In this week’s episode of the podcast I invited Kim Vij of The Educators’ Spin on It to join me in a discussion about the policy.

Pinterest Announces It Will Be Rolling Out Ads

14 Monday Apr 2014

Posted by in Pinterest

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Pinterest announced that they will be rolling out ads in the next quarter, great news right? Yes, but before you start putting together your next Pinterest Campaign, you might want to put together funding. Rumor has it that Pinterest will follow Twitters lead in pricing these promotions.  So, what will entice brands to pony up? Pinterest hits that proverbial “sweet spot” demographically and is uniquely qualified for commerce integration.

bii pinterest dem1

In a recent report from BI Intelligence, we looked at the demographic breakdowns of the major social networks, as well as each one’s unique characteristics. Pinterest has a high-income user base that’s very interested in using the site for shopping inspiration.

Here are some of the top statistics on Pinterest’s users:

In full, the special report: 

11 signs your small business social media strategy isn’t working

01 Tuesday Apr 2014

Posted by in Facebook, Google+, LInkedIn, Marketing, Multi Channel Marketing, Pinterest, Twitter, YouTube

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Today, small business owners are busier than ever trying to run their companies while handling marketing and sales, too. An important part of marketing today is social media. For many small business owners, the world of social media is still foreign territory, and finding the perfect strategy that actually works can often be difficult.

So how do you know if what you’re doing is really hitting the mark? Here are 11 signs that your small business strategy isn’t working. If you’re doing any of the things on this list, chances are your strategy is falling flat and you’re missing prime opportunities to use social media to engage, inform and promote.

1. You delete negative posts.

Negative posts about your brand can be shocking, scary and hurtful. One of the key mistakes small business owners make is taking negative comments personally. Most often when you see a negative post about your brand, the person posting isn’t talking about you. They’re talking about your product or service. Instead of hitting the delete button when you see something negative, think of it as an opportunity to engage. But make sure that you directly address the negativity head-on. Don’t try to sugarcoat your response.

For example, if you own a delivery service and a customer makes a negative comment about your company because their package was late, don’t panic. Instead, let the person know that you will direct message (DM) them with a response and take care of the issue. Once the issue is resolved, go back to the original post and let your followers know you’ve handled it.

In 2011, a Harris survey looked at customers who posted negative reviewed during the Christmas season. The survey found that 68 percent of customers that left negative reviews got a response from the business they were reviewing. As a result, 18 percent of them became regular customers and made additional purchases. Of the customers who received a response from their negative post, 33 percent of them actually posted something positive after and a whopping 34 percent deleted the original negative post.

So don’t ignore negative posts. Deal with them directly, and you might just turn a negative into a positive!

2. You don’t have a solid company social media policy in place.

Most small businesses don’t have a formal social media policy in place. If you’re in that boat, you really should take the time to develop one. Think of it as a road map to helping your promote your brand better on social media. If you define procedures and protocols upfront for how often you’ll post, who will maintain the accounts and how you will handle negative posts, it makes it a lot easier to run your accounts and spring into action quickly when something goes wrong.

3. You’re on autopilot.

Most social media platforms have an automated message feature, but it doesn’t mean you have to use it. When many social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook were first introduced to the public, the automated message feature seemed like a convenient way to thank people who followed you. Today, automated messages are widely considered annoying and impersonal. Instead of sending the same message to every new follower, take the time to send personalized thanks when you can.

Remember, you don’t have to thank every follower, but it’s a good idea to thank those that stand out. For example, if you own a restaurant and the food columnist for your local newspaper starts following you, you may want to reach out directly to establish an ongoing dialogue rather than letting an automated message do it for you.

4. You’re not tracking what others say about your brand.

Many small business owners make the mistake of thinking that consumers only post about them on their brand page. In reality, consumers post about brands everywhere — Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram and review sites, to name a few. While it’s a great idea to monitor your own social media accounts to see what people are saying about you, it’s an even better idea move to using a social mention tracking tool to find out what people are posting about your brand around the Internet.

Social Mention is a great free tool for doing this. Visit http://SocialMention.com to check it out.

5. Your updates are sporadic.

If you’re not updating your social media pages on a regular basis, you’re missing out. You don’t have to post multiple times a day, but you should at least make a few posts a week to keep your followers, who are essentially your customers, engaged and excited about your brand.

6. You don’t know the difference between a reply and a mention on Twitter.

Did you know that if someone posts something on Twitter and you start your response with @, you’re limiting the number of people who are going to see the reply? For example, if @customerx posted something about @xyzbusiness and that company starts their reply with @customerx, it will only be seen by the customer and the business. That’s a reply. To make sure it’s seen by all of your followers, add a period in front of it like this — .@customerx — to make it a mention.

7. You overuse hashtags in your posts.

Not every word in your post needs to have a hashtag. In fact, hashtagging every word is going to make your post harder to read. Instead, use hashtags sparingly. Try not to use more than three per post.

8. You don’t proofread your posts.

Grammatical errors make your posts hard to read and reflect poorly on your brand. Proofread everything you write before you post it.

9. You only share things related to your brand.

This is a cardinal sin of social media. Remember that your purpose is to engage and get to know your customers. Your brand isn’t the only one they follow, and it’s certainly not the only thing that is of interest to them. Be sure to spend some time browsing your customers’ page, find out what things they like and leave positive comments. This is an excellent way to foster lasting relationships with your customers online. It also shows your customers that you are interested in them, too.

10. You make it hard to retweet your content.

It’s a fact that Twitter gives you 140 characters to post, but it doesn’t mean you have to use all of them. In fact, you should leave about 20 or so characters that can be used by others who retweet your content for the “RT @customerx” that will automatically be part of the retweet. This makes it easier for people to share your content quickly with no hassles.

11. You don’t retweet your followers’ content.

While you definitely want to make it easy for others to retweet your content, you also have to spend some time doing a little retweeting yourself. Find content from your followers that you find interesting and take a minute or two to retweet it. Remember social media is a two-way street and engagement is the key to success.