Creating great posts are one of the most important activities you can do on social media. (next to listening) Post are the basic tools of communication on social media, so brands need to make sure that theirs have a level of professionalism that reflects well on them.
If you are posting for a company or organization, make sure your posts look professional with these 6 tips.
1. Spelling, Punctuation, and Grammar
The Problem: Typos and poor grammar are one of the quickest ways to make your posts look unprofessional. Just because social media is a less formal way to communicate doesn’t mean you get to skip the fundamentals!
The Pro fix: WAIT… Before you click post, make sure to step back and re-read what you just typed. Start with spelling, since that will be the most obvious mistake to your audience, then move on to grammar and punctuation. A little attention to detail can go a long way.
Twitter is a bit of an exception however. There’s a bit more leeway when it comes to using abbreviations and shorthand in tweets due to the length limitations. As a rule of thumb, it’s fine to use abbreviations as long as you don’t compromise clarity.
For instance your post will still look fine if you use RT instead of Retweet
2. Use Photos Responsibly
The Problem: Using low quality images will not only make your social media presence look unprofessional, it will annoy your audience and decrease interaction. No matter how good your content is, if it doesn’t look good it won’t get clicks.
The Pro Fix:
- Subscribe to a stock photo site
- Crop your images to correct dimensions
Using royalty free stock photos will not only give you a library of high resolution images to choose from, it will keep you from committing copyright infringement. Most images found on google image search or pulled from the web are copyrighted, and if you’re posting for a company it’s extremely important to avoid using them.
The second part of this fix takes a little effort, but is well worth it. Find out the exact size specification each social media site uses so that you know exactly how to crop your images so they will look as good as possible.
For example, If you upload a photo to Facebook that doesn’t have the right dimensions, it will get resized.
Wrong Dimensions: Logo squished and hard to see.
Correct Dimensions: Nice big eye-catching image.
3. Don’t automatically cross post content
The Problem: It’s tempting to have your Facebook posts automatically published to Twitter, unfortunately the time you save isn’t worth the ugly tweets you’ll generate.
The Pro Fix: It’s definitely okay to post the same content to all of your social media sites, just take the time to craft each post for the site it’s going to be shown on.
A Facebook post is too long to put on Twitter and vice versa. Not to mention the fact that Facebook allows you to hide links and Twitter does not. (See the next tip)
4. Hide those links
The Problem: On Facebook, posting a URL automatically generates a link preview, which usually contains a picture and a short piece of the content of the link. Unfortunately this will give you a cluttered post.
The Pro Fix: When posting to Facebook you can actually delete your original URL without eliminating the preview. Posting links in this way results in a much cleaner look.
For example: With link (messy)
Without link (clean)
Unfortunately, on Twitter , links have to remain part of the body of a tweet. However, there is a simple way to make your tweets look cleaner while saving some of your 140 characters. Use a link shortener like Bit.ly. Bit.ly will not only shorten your links but it even gives you the option to create custom links that are easy to remember as well as track links you’ve already made.
5.Use an optimal post length
The Problem: Posts that are too long or short not only look bad, but result in less engagement.
The Pro Fix (For Twitter): It sounds too simple, but one of the best ways to increase your number of retweets is to make your tweets more easy to retweet. Do this by leaving enough room in your tweet that someone can retweet your post without exceeding 140 characters.
The Pro Fix (For Facebook): Having the correct length isn’t nearly as important on Facebook as it is for Twitter, but it’s still worth paying attention too. According to Fastcompany.com the best length for a Facebook post is just 40 characters. If that seems too short don’t forget that images are a powerful way to get your message across.
6. Remember who you’re representing
Without getting into an entire content strategy discussion, here’s a good rule of thumb for professional level posts. Don’t forget that your posts aren’t coming from an individual they are coming from a brand, company or organization. Be sure to post appropriate content that represents your brand well, and never be negative!
Need help with your brand’s social media strategy? McConnell Marketing offers full service social media services from basic strategy to dedicated account management. Email us: info@mcconnellmarketing.com
