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How To Get Your Facebook Page Verified In A Few Simple Steps

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We’ve talked about getting your Twitter page verified in a previous blog post, and how this simple blue check mark can help your business in a number of positive ways. But did you know that you can also get your Facebook business page verified? Here’s something even better: it’s much easier and faster to accomplish than getting a Twitter account verified.

Getting your Facebook page verified shows your customers that you’re the real deal legitimate business they’re looking for, and helps you to get found more easily in Facebook’s search function.

Here are a few simple steps to get your page verified.

Facebook Business Page

The first thing you need to do is to log in to your Facebook account and go to your business’s Facebook Page. If you don’t currently have a page setup for your business, go ahead and do so now. If you’re setting your page up for the first time, be sure to mark it as a Local Businesses or Companies & Organizations in the category section. This is the best categorization for your Facebook Page as a business owner, and Facebook will only let you verify your page if you are labeled under one of these two categories.

Go To Settings

Next, you’ll need to go to your Facebook Page’s settings, located at the top of your page on the right-hand side. Your settings should open up in the General section, but if it doesn’t, click on General in the options in the left side column.

Page Verification

You should see an option for Page Verification, the third option in the list of General settings. If you don’t see this option, make sure your Page is categorized under Local Businesses or Companies & Organizations. You can always change your category by going to the About section of your Page, and clicking on Edit Page Info. You can select your Category in the third option in Edit Page Info.

Click on Edit next to Page Verification, and then click on Verify this Page. A new box will open up that will allow you to verify your page in one of two ways.

Get Your Check Mark

There are two ways you can verify your page. The first way is to have Facebook call you and give you a verification code. In order to use this way you have to make sure you are a business that has a local phone listing, and you have somebody who can immediately answer the call because Facebook’s automated phone service will call you right away. When they call, an automated voice will repeat a 4-digit code to you. Enter the code, and if Facebook recognizes you as a business, they will verify your page.

The second way requires you to upload a picture of an official document for your business. It has to be one that how’s your business or organization’s name and address. Facebook lists a few different documents you can upload:

  • Business utility or phone bill
  • Business license
  • Business tax file
  • Certificate of formation
  • Articles of incorporation

Facebook assures you that they will only use the documents to verify your business and won’t share or post it publicly. Once the document is uploaded, you’ll have to wait on Facebook to get back to you and verify that your business is real. Note that the document you upload must be one of these file types:

  • .doc
  • .docx
  • .pdf
  • .jpg
  • .jpeg
  • .png

That’s it! Pretty simple, right? Take the necessary steps to get your Facebook page verified today, and starting reaping the benefits!

For more info on Facebook’s verification process, check out their official Help Center.

Don’t Like Snapchat? Try Instagram!

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Are you one of the many people who hasn’t jumped on the Snapchat bandwagon, and doesn’t really want to bother learning a brand new form of social media? Are you content with just using Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram for your daily updates for your business?

You’re in luck! Instagram wants to make your job easier, with its new Snapchat-like feature, called Instagram Stories.

If you’re new to the 24-hour picture messaging craze started by Snapchat, then this new feature will be completely new to you. But if you’re familiar with how Snapchat works, you’ll notice that Instagram Stories looks very similar to Snapchat Stories (heck, even the name is the same!)

Instagram explains it like this:

With Instagram Stories, you don’t have to worry about overposting. Instead, you can share as much as you want throughout the day — with as much creativity as you want. You can bring your story to life in new ways with text and drawing tools. The photos and videos will disappear after 24 hours and won’t appear on your profile grid or in feed.

So, instead of posting pictures that stay attached to your profile for as long as you keep them posted, Instagram Stories allows you to post quick photos or videos that are attached to your profile and disappear after a 24 hour period.

You might be asking, “what’s the advantage of that?” Well, it’s the same advantage that businesses who have been using Snapchat have been enjoying for some time. It allows you to interact with your customers more intimately, by providing them with exclusive behind-the-scenes photos, discounts and deals, and maybe a simple message that you’d rather share for only a specific amount of time!

To use the new Instagram Stories feature, you only need to take a few extra steps in your normal posting routine. To post a photo to Instagram Stories, simply click the Plus sign icon near the top left part of your social feed. You can snap your pic by pressing the white circle at the bottom, or hold it to shoot a short video clip.

Once you’ve taken your picture or video, you can draw on it or add text on top of it (sorry, no fun filters just yet!) Press the white checkmark and your pic or video will be added to your story! Stories from people you follow will appear at the top of your feed, and your own story will show up on your profile page. If there’s a colored circle surrounding someone’s profile picture, you know they have a story to share!

When looking through someone else’s Story, you can click on the screen to move through their story, or swipe left to go on to the next account’s Story. Want to view a picture for longer? Hold your finger down on the screen and you can view the pic for as long as you need. You can also comment on someone’s Story by tapping the Direct Message button and sending them a private message. Public likes and comments aren’t available on Stories, unlike regular posts, but you can see how many people have viewed your Story so you know that it’s working!

The possibilities for using Instagram Stories for your business are boundless! For more info, check out Instagram’s official blog post!

How To Get A Verified Twitter Account, And Why It Matters

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Verified

Twitter is one of the most influential and helpful social media platforms to be active on with your brand. Chances are if you’re a brand that wants to make an impact on your customers, and connect with them on a more personal level, you already using Twitter.

But have you ever noticed how some brands have that little blue check mark beside their name, while others don’t?

This is what’s known as a Verified account, and it distinguishes the influencers, brands, and famous people from every other user.

In the past, Twitter’s verification process has been a bit ambiguous, with the brand having almost no say on whether or not they could get a verified badge on their profile. Twitter would decide on its own whether or not an account needed a verified badge.

However, recently Twitter has opened up the verification process to everyone, allowing people to submit an application to Twitter in order to be verified! Of course, this doesn’t mean that everyone who applies will be automatically recognized by Twitter as an account that deserves verification, but it’s definitely a good place to start for many brands who’ve been waiting anxiously for that little blue check mark.

In a statement released by Twitter, they explained their reasoning behind opening up the verification process:

We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter, so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification.

– Twitter’s Vice President of User Services, Tina Bhatnagar

The full press release can be found here.

So, I’ve explained what Twitter verification is, but why does it matter for your business or your brand? Here are a few reasons why you should be taking steps to verify your account.

It Lets People Know You’re The Real Deal

People like to know that the person they’re following, interacting with, and trusting is the real deal. The internet, and especially Twitter, is full of spam and parody accounts that exist as a way to satirize actual celebrities and brands. The Twitter verification badge allows users to know which accounts are real, and which ones are fake. All they have to do is spot your badge, and they know that they are following a credible account instead of one of the many “troll” accounts.

It Gives Your Brand Credibility

It also lets your followers know that your brand is established enough to qualify for a badge. There are some businesses out there who have yet to receive a blue verification badge, which can make them seem like they aren’t a credible account, and can’t be trusted. There’s nothing more important than giving off a sense of credibility to your customers.

Exclusivity

Before this new verification, verified Twitter accounts used to be a lot more exclusive. Although this is now changing, verified accounts are still a pretty exclusive club, consisting of well-known brands and celebrities such as Kanye West, NASA, President Barack Obama, Target, Rolling Stone Magazine, etc. Getting verified puts you in the same category of influence as other verified accounts, and, again, makes you seem more trustworthy to consumers.

Great For Connecting With Customers

Think about this for a second: say you’re on Twitter looking through your timeline when all of a sudden you get a notification saying that such-and-such business has sent you a direct message (or DM). You look at their profile and notice they don’t have a verification check mark. Do you respond to them? Would you trust them, knowing that they might be trying to hack and steal sensitive info?

This is how most customers would approach the situation if they see you’re not verified. This makes it even harder to connect with your consumers, and interact with them the way social media was intended. A blue verification badge gives your customers the peace of mind they need to trust you if you ever need to reach out to them personally.

Twitter verification is now easier than ever, and as you can see, can be greatly influential on the success of your business.

If you’re ready to get your Twitter account verified, just click here to fill out the application form!

Twitter Lists: What They Are And How To Use Them

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Twitter Lists

If you have a Twitter account, then you know how impossible it is to see every tweet from every person you follow, even more so if you’re a larger business who “follows back” thousands of customers.

Although Twitter recently rolled out a new stream algorithm intended to make those tweets you might have missed show up first when you open the app, it’s still not a perfect solution. Thankfully, there’s a better way.

Twitter Lists were created to curate groups of Twitter accounts together, so instead of having to scroll through a massive stream to view all the tweets from the accounts you follow, they can be grouped into nice little bite-sized streams for easy viewing.

To get started with creating Lists, you first need to decide which type of device you want to create them on. There are different ways to create a list, depending on if you have an IOS device, an Android device, or if you’re using a web browser.

iOS

On iOS, first, open up the Twitter app, and then click on the Me tab. Then, click the gear icon. Select View Lists, next, and then tap the Plus icon to create a new list. You can give your list a name and short description, and then decide whether you want your list to be public or private. I’d recommend using the Private setting if you’re using it to keep up with what your competitors are posting because the person you add to a Public list will get a notification whenever they are added to a list. After you’ve finished this, click Save.

Android

The Android app works in much the same way that the iOS app does, except for a few small changes. Open your Twitter app, and then click the overflow icon (the 3 vertical dots). Then select View Lists. Next, tap the Plus icon to create a new list. Follow the same steps as the iOS version, and then click Save.

Web

In order to create a list from your web browser, you’ll first need to login to your Twitter account. Then, click on your profile icon. A drop down menu will appear, and you’ll need to click Lists. Next, click Create New List. Give your list a name and descriptions, and set the privacy settings to either Public or Private. Click Save List and you’re done!

Adding/Removing Accounts From Lists

After you’ve created your list, the obvious next step is to add people to that list. To add someone to your list, you’ll need to go to their profile page and click on the gear icon next to their Follow button. This works on all three versions mentioned above: iOS, Android, and Web Browser. After you click on the gear icon, you’ll need to click Add or Remove Lists, and then select the list you’d like to place the account in. If you placed someone in a list that you’d like to remove them from, uncheck the box beside the list you’d like to remove them from.

Viewing Lists

Once you’ve gotten your lists set and organized, the next step is to view those lists. To view a list you’ve created on a mobile app, you’ll first need to go to your profile page (the Me option) and click the gear icon. You’ll see View Lists, and once you click on that, you’ll see all of the Lists you’ve created. Click on the one you’d like to view, and your Tweet stream will turn into a perfectly curated list of the accounts you want to see. Pretty simple!

Twitter Lists are a great way to organize all of the accounts you follow into easy-to-view streams that guarantee you’ll never miss important tweets by customers, competitors, influencers, and more!

For more on Twitter Lists, check out Twitter’s official Support page! 

#FreShaVocaDo — Turning A Meme Into A Marketing Advantage

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#Fre Sha Voca Do

#FreShaVocaDo

You might be asking yourself right now, “what in the world does that hashtag mean?” Well, if you’ve ever been on the popular short video sharing app Vine (RIP), you know exactly what it means.

Vine user Gasoleen shared a short video of a sign for her local Del Taco restaurant that had the unfortunate mistake of spelling the phrase “Fresh Avocado” horribly wrong. Instead, the sign read “Fre Sha Voca Do,” and like all Internet crazes that for no apparent reason take off and reach legendary status, her Vine has been watched more than 46.9 million times since it was uploaded in February 2016.

It’s even inspired a ton of parody memes:

When you have a Vine that’s poking fun at an unfortunate spelling error for one of your restaurant chains, you should probably take notice. And that’s exactly what Del Taco did. But not in a way that you might be thinking.

Instead of trying to cover up the small problem, and act like it never happened, Del Taco took the opposite approach: they dove headfirst into the hilarity of a new Internet meme. Because of the massive watch numbers for this one simple Vine video, Del Taco recently Tweeted out a video ad featuring audio from the Vine that offers a free fresh slice of avocado on any taco when customers use an attached coupon. And what’s prominently featured at the top of the coupon? #FreShaVocaDo

 

Del Taco Coupon

Del Taco did exactly what you should do as a business who becomes the butt end of a harmless joke: embrace the humor, embrace the fun, and embrace the meme.

This isn’t the first instance of a business being transformed into a popular meme overnight. The same thing happened to Vans this year, with the “Damn Daniel” Snapchat story.

This was a simple video where one teenage boy jokingly followed his friend around a school, videotaping him and saying “Damnnnn Daniel!,” and “Back at it again with the White Vans!” The video got so popular that the two boys were invited on the Ellen Show, and one boy was given a lifetime supply of Vans shoes! Even though this wasn’t a bad situation for Vans, they took advantage of it and really marketed themselves well with this crazy Internet meme.

Both of these cases prove a couple of things:

1. You need to pay attention to pop culture trends! You may be marketing to older generations now, who are less concerned with pop culture or Internet culture trends, but one day the millennial generation is going to be buying your products as well. They probably already are. You don’t want to seem detached from what the rest of the world sees as popular. Take advantage of these weird trends, and use it as a part of your marketing strategy.

2. Don’t be afraid to laugh at yourself and have a little fun at your own expense. Now, I’m not talking about gigantic snafus that could really cost your business customers unless an apology is issued. I’m talking about small mistakes, ones that can be remedied by joining in on the fun and maybe doing a special promotion just for the lifespan of the joke. The Del Taco Vine was trending on Vine for two days, and the day after it reached peak popularity, Del Taco released their coupon. A coupon that’s only good for a week. That’s a great example of jumping on a trend before it dies.

Marketing and business don’t always have to be serious, and tone deaf to the outside world’s trends. Take advantage of those trends and learn how to implement them into a successful marketing strategy!

And if you need a refresher about all the best viral videos and memes of 2015, check out this list from Business Insider. 

Facebook Adds New Reactions To Posts: How This Affects Your Business

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With its most recent update, Facebook has given users something they’ve been asking for since the social media platform took off in 2006: an expansion on the now iconic Like button.

The new Facebook Reactions allow users to show how they feel about a post with six different emotions: Love, Haha (laughing), Wow, Sad, and Angry. As you can imagine, this significantly changes the way people can react to their friends posts. No longer are you forced to Like a Facebook post about someone’s pet passing away, or if they’ve lost their job recently. Now you can express your sadness with a Sad reaction emoji, avoiding sending mixed messages that often come along with a Like to one of those types of statuses.

Users can also choose to react with disapproval, rather than just scrolling by the post in question on their News Feed, or leave a nasty comment showing their displeasure.

What does that mean for you and your business? It means that now customers can interact with your posts in a much more personal way. As a business owner, this means you can also gauge people’s reactions to your posts, and find out exactly which posts are working and which ones are not.

Check out some of the ways these reactions will change the way you and your customers interact online, and how you can learn to use these reactions to better your business!

Breakdown

If you’re using a desktop or laptop computer for your Facebook account, you can now hover your mouse over the Like button to see the new options. Simply move your mouse over to the reaction you want, and boom! Your reactions show up on the status. Facebook also lets you see how many of each reaction people use on your status, making it easy to track what the majority of people think about a status.

On the mobile device, it works almost the same way. Just hold your finger on the like button, and then swipe over to the right to select which emotion you want to use. It’s as simple as that! For mobile devices, you might have to update your app to see the new reactions show up.

 

For your Facebook Pages (a.k.a. your business page) you’ll start to get notifications that say people “reacted” to your published post instead of just Liking it. These reactions will now also play a factor in your Facebook Insights, as you’ll see a breakdown of each reaction in your insights instead of just the Likes. But, interestingly enough, no matter if it’s a bad reaction or not, these reactions don’t count in the negative section of your insights, such as Hide Post, Report as Spam, Hide All Post, or Unlike Page. Any reaction is a good one!

Encourage Its Use

One thing that usually happens when a major update rolls out is that most people won’t hear about it, or know it exists, for quite awhile. That’s why it’s up to you to encourage people to use reactions! Chances are that before you said something to them, they had no idea that the option was available, but once you show them the advantage of reactions, you’ll see a sharp increase in their use.

A simple way to encourage their use is by making a status that says “Have you heard about Facebook’s new reaction options? What do you think about this update? Use a reaction on this post to tell us how you feel!”

Use It To Change Up Contests

Facebook contests have always used the “like this status to be entered into our contest!” approach. This is an effective way to get people to interact with your page, but it’s also overused and boring. Instead of encouraging people to like your status, ask them to love your status, or Wow your status. It sounds silly, but it changes up the repetitiveness of liking a status, and it’s also a good way to inform them about reactions if they still don’t know about them.

Interact With Other Pages

Interacting with other business pages, including businesses that you would consider your influencers, is never a bad idea. Leaving a like or a comment on another business’s page is a good way to build relationships, and also, promote your business in a sly manner.

With reactions, you can now interact with other businesses in a more convincing way, instead of just leaving a polite like. Use a Wow or Haha reaction to show approval of their content, and maybe they’ll offer the same in return! You never know what opportunities a little friendly interaction between companies will get you.

Facebook has once again reinvented the way we interact with friends, family, and customers online. Start integrating Facebook reactions into your social media strategy and see what positive results come out of it!

For more info, check out Facebook’s post about reactions on their blog. 

6 Tips For Running A Successful Social Media Campaign

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Social Media Campaigns

So, you want to start a brand new social media campaign to get your followers involved with your company, spread the word about your awesome products, and grow your online presence. You’ve seen companies do giveaways, use trending hashtags, and share posts from consumer lots of times, and you’d like to jump on the bandwagon to get your company moving in that direction as well.

Only one problem: you don’t know what a social media campaign is, or even where to start with one. Not to worry, we’ve got six fantastic tips that can help you get your social media campaign off and running, and get the results you need to grow your business!

What is It?

A social media campaign is an online marketing strategy for engaging with your customers, building relationships, and convincing them to like, follow, and share your company’s social content with others online. You can use social media campaigns to giveaway goodies, get people to use a branded hashtag, and coerce them into signing up for email lists, newsletters, promotional material, services and more! Simple enough, right? To put it plainly, social media campaigns help to drive traffic to your social media accounts and your website, increase brand awareness, and generate sales leads.

What Do I Need To Do Now?

Research Campaign Software

Trying to manage your social media campaign by yourself, using only the basic Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram software found on each company’s website is almost impossible. Besides the fact that you’re having to switch between multiple accounts throughout the day, it’s also infuriatingly difficult to keep track of how well your campaign is actually going.

Thank goodness for campaign software, such as Hootsuite, Buffer, Sprout Social and more, that aid in making your social media campaign a simple success! Most of these software programs are free or inexpensive, and allow you to connect all of your social media accounts into one place, helping your campaign to run as smooth as possible. Be sure to research all of the different software out there, to find the one that works best for you and your company.

Promote

No social media campaign will succeed without incessant promotion. You have to promote your campaign everywhere, not just on your actual social media accounts. You can also promote it through email campaigns, by buying ad space on websites, or even through good ‘ol fashioned word of mouth. You need to get your campaign into the eyes, and also the minds, of every single member of your target audience because no social media campaign has ever succeeded without being heavily promoted.

Find The Right Giveaway

Before you start giving away tickets to Journey, gift cards to popular coffee shops, or cups/mugs emblazoned with your company logo, you need to understand your audience. Are these giveaways going to be products that your company actually sells, or are you giving away the most popular item you can think of, that may not be related to your business? It’s never a bad idea to giveaway products because giveaway social media campaigns are some of the most popular and most widely shared posts out there, but if you really want to connect with people, it might be a good idea to give away something that your business actually provides to consumers.

Try Form-Filling Instead of “Likes” or “Shares”

One of the most popular social media campaigns is the “like, comment and share our post to be entered into this giveaway!” But is that still the best way to do a social media campaign?

In the early days of campaigns, businesses would ask people to “like” their Facebook page, as well as liking a post, to be entered in a giveaway. But in 2014, Facebook implemented a rule that prevented what is known as Like-Gating (aka, requiring users to “like” your page before you let them see your content, therefore blocking them from interacting with your posts).

With that in mind, many companies have turned to better and more unique ways of doing social media campaigns, such as form-filling. This type of campaign requires users to enter a few basic bits of information into a form before they can be entered into a giveaway or other type of promotion. Not only is this a more efficient way of gathering entries into a contest, it also gives your sales team a good way to generate leads. But be sure you don’t ask entrants to enter more information than they’re comfortable with entering. Their name and email, along with buttons to “share” or “like” your page for more entries, are usually enough.

Interact

According to a blog post about social media campaigns on Hootsuite, there are three stages of social media campaigning: the before, during and after. At the “during” stage of the process, one of the most important things to do is to interact with customers that are participating in your campaign. Whether that’s people who are leaving comments on a post, using your branded hashtag or sending you DMs with inquiries, be sure to respond to them as quickly as you can manage. This shows them that your campaign is alive and active. When people see that you are interacting with others and that there is actual activity surrounding your campaign, they are more likely to participate in the campaign as well.

Monitor

Another big part of the “during” stage is to monitor the activity and insights of your social media campaign. Again, this is something that is made much simpler by Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and others, but Facebook and Twitter both allow businesses to monitor insights, such as post reach and activity on their websites. Monitoring your campaign is also something that you can do after your campaign has ended, to measure how successful the campaign was in reaching your audience, and how many people actually actively participated in the social campaign.

Social media campaigns can be vital to a successful online presence for businesses. Don’t be scared to start your own campaign to build brand awareness and generate more leads than ever!

Newsletter: What’s Trending For January

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5 Ways Your Business Could Be Using Snapchat Right Now

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Snapchat

Snapchat is quickly becoming one of the most popular and widely used social media apps around. But, chances are, you have no idea what it is or how it works. All you know is that it’s causing your kids to make funny, ridiculous faces constantly while staring at their smartphones. Did you know, however, that many businesses are now embracing the novelty of Snapchat to engage customers and grow their brands?

Here are five ways that your company can use Snapchat to engage your customers!

Give A Behind The Scenes Look

Ever wanted to get a look behind the scenes of your favorite business and see just how they operate on a day-to-day basis? Well, so do your customers! With Snapchat, you can snap quick pictures, or video, and send it out to all of your followers. Whether you’re showing off a company party or just a normal day of operations, people love to feel connected to your business!

Do Specials and Promotions

Just like with other social media platforms and email, Snapchat makes it really easy to give out special promotions and perks. Got a 20 percent off discount code for a product that you’re sending out to customers in an email? Why not send out the promo code in a snap to your followers as well! This gives a sense of exclusivity to your customers and makes them feel like they’re getting something really special from you.

Get Influencers To Rep You

A lot of businesses will let their brand advocates take over their Snapchat for a while in order to show customers real people that support their brand. It’s also a good way to get another perspective on your business out there to people. Of course, you still have to make sure the person who gains access to your account can be trusted, and won’t put the integrity of the company in jeopardy.

Do Live Broadcasts

“Snaps” from Snapchat can be used in both photo and video form. With that in mind, you can strategize how best to send out live content to your followers. Do you send short video clips to them, or do you send “snaps” in the traditional picture format? Either way, Snapchat is a great way to give followers live, visual updates of what you’re doing in the moment. You can also add these pics and video to Snapchat Stories, which are a string of “snaps” that last for 24 hours and then disappear, rather than immediately disappearing.

Show Off Exclusive Content Here First

Got a new product that you want to show off, but feel like people won’t see it quick enough through an email or Tweet? Send them a “snap” of the product! This is considered exclusive content to the customer, and, again, will make them feel like they’re receiving something special from you. Exclusive content is always appreciated by the customer and lets them know you care about the business they give you!

Don’t be afraid to use Snapchat! It’s a wonderful new social media platform that businesses all over the world, small and large, are utilizing in their social media marketing strategies!

The Ethics of Social Media For Business

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Ethics

When social media first burst into the mainstream public with Facebook, it was a new frontier that had mostly been unexplored by a wide majority of people. It was a lawless medium where you could tell hordes of random people all your deepest thoughts, or maybe just what you had for lunch that day.

Because most people had never experienced the kind of freedom of expression and opinion that they could on social media, there was no real set of ethical laws that governed it. But, just like anything else in this world, there should be, and are, ethical laws that keep people from overstepping their boundaries and committing unethical acts that they will later regret.

The list of ethical rules should also hold businesses accountable for their online actions. In fact, businesses should be the ones that are the most interested in the ethics of social media, since they’re constantly in the public’s eye, with watchful people waiting for them to make the next big slip up.

If you’re worried about the ethics of social media, and how you and your business should interact with others online, check out some of these awesome tips!

Don’t Give Out False Information

Every business owner should know that you shouldn’t fabricate stories to make yourself seem better, or another rival business look worse. That’s called libel/slander and it has serious legal ramifications. But what I really mean here is that you shouldn’t tell people things like your sales numbers, profits, or product claims that are false. This build distrust between the consumer and your business. Always tell the truth, no matter if it isn’t always the best truth.

Copyright Laws

Be sure to always check the copyright laws on a picture or video you are sharing, especially if you don’t give credit where credit is due. Social media laws about including a copyrighted picture in a post are a little more lenient than other places, but it’s still always a good idea to avoid any questions of improper use. There are plenty of websites out there where you can find Creative Commons licensed pics to use, so take advantage of those.

Avoid Disclosing Private Information

This is a no-brainer, but avoid disclosing anything about the inner workings of your company, such as an employee’s personal home or email address. Any information that could come back to harm you should be kept off of social media, even in private messages.

Don’t Show Favoritism Toward One Individual

It’s easy to show favoritism toward a star customer, especially when that customer is a strong, outspoken advocate of your business. But if other customers catch wind of you treating one customer more favorably than others, they will soon lose interest in your business and accuse you of playing favorites. Treat all customers equally when you’re answering their comments on your post, or when they tweet at you.

Don’t Post Inappropriate Pictures, Jokes, or Slang

Never post a picture that contains obviously offensive or sensitive content. You can’t please everyone, and you never know when a seemingly harmless post might offend a customer, but use your good judgement and think about whether the picture you post will offend someone before you decide to post it. The same goes for jokes and slang words. Don’t post inappropriate or “dirty” jokes and avoid any type of slang that might be deemed offensive. Know your audience and know what they think is appropriate material before you post anything.

Avoid Political or Religious Commentary/Opinion

I don’t like seeing this type of stuff on my own personal Facebook, I definitely don’t want to see it coming from a business’s official social account. Although some people love to get into a good debate when hiding behind the safety and comfort of a computer screen, posting anything political or religious is a good way to get people angry at each other, and your business. Keep your personal beliefs to yourself and off of social media.

Be cautious about what you choose to post on social media, because there will always be people out there who will try to use it against you, in order to tarnish the reputation of your company. When in doubt, always stop and think before posting!