One of our clients said something that, as a dog owner, I found thought provoking and worth sharing.

“Social media is like a puppy. If you can’t love it, take care of it, feed it and support its growth, you’re not equipped to have it. “

As the name “social media” suggests, it is a vibrant, interactive world, and without proper care, it can make your brand appear dated, behind the competition and short on resources. That said, here are six best practices and rules of the road for maintaining and growing your social media presence.

  1. Post every day. Consistent and fresh content keeps followers, and potential followers, engaged and shows that your site is a valuable use of their time.
  2. Check your site on a daily basis and respond to customer or follower questions and comments as quickly as possible.
  3. On Twitter, follow journalists, analysts and other key industry influencers. Then, take it a step further and try engaging them in conversations by retweeting their content, or mentioning them in some of your own.
  4. Measure your impact. Make sure all the URLs that are pushed out on your brand’s social media channels are tracked. This not only helps measure engagement, but it will give you a clearer picture of what’s working and what’s not. Tools like Bitly, Simply Measured, Google Analytics, or even the homegrown social media analytics on each platform will help analyze how well your content is performing and the health of your social channels.
  5. Leverage paid social to reach and engage a larger target audience and to encourage targeted influencers to follow.
  6. Keep up with changing social site media requirements, like new cover images, avatar sizes, newsfeed updates, general new features and more.

These days, having an online presence is as vital to your business as your sales team. But if you aren’t able to nurture it, it’s probably best to stay away from social media altogether (or do what we recommend, call in some experts like the Voxus team).