As part of our business blogging services, we provide social media management alongside blogging. Whilst there’s no doubt effective blog post content is the key to any online success, social media can enhance the benefits and ensure results are seen quicker and on a larger scale than if blogging was used solely by itself.

With various different aspects to consider when it comes to social media management, we often take over existing accounts for clients and see the same mistakes time and time again, with the following 10 prompts used to explain what you should be doing with social media to ensure you don’t succumb to the same common mistakes so many often do.

1. Always engage with others

Social media activity should never be seen as one person lecturing others, constantly selling or promoting their own products or services. Instead, it should be a conversation and you should be actively talking and interacting with others.

2. Extend your reach, but remember quality is better than quantity

Whilst Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn can be fantastic social media resources, there are dozens of other networks available to utilise, many of which could be even more suitable than the primary three.

However, it’s important to remember that one great presence on Twitter, for example, will be more beneficial than poor quality presences on 10 other social media networks.

3. Use the networks fully

You can publish a tweet on Twitter and start a new discussion in your own LinkedIn group, but there is so much more to take advantage of, from the use of hashtags and lists in Twitter through to group analytics on LinkedIn, all helping you to extend your reach and see the most benefits possible from your social media activity.

4. Regular activity is a must

As with using other social media networks, quality should always come first in terms of your activity and you shouldn’t feel you have to make 20 status updates every day. You do need to have some type of regularity with your activity, however, so to ensure there are no major breaks in your presences.

5. Capitalise on what’s hot

Whilst you should always aim to develop your own voice on social media, if you see something that’s getting a lot of attention, you shouldn’t be afraid to try and capitalise on it.

For instance, if there’s a topical news item related to your industry, consider writing a blog post around it, giving your own view on the subject and then publishing it appropriately across your social media accounts. Essentially ‘jumping on the band wagon’, it’s something that if done effectively will likely see your follower numbers and general activity increase substantially.

6. Publish your own content more than once

When you publish a new blog post, you should promote it on your social media accounts immediately, but you can do this numerous times for the same blog post. When you are promoting the same piece, though, you have to make sure the promotion is slightly different each time, such as by using different hashtags for Twitter or a different title for LinkedIn discussions.

7. Understand your audience

Are your potential customers more active on a morning or afternoon?  Should you start discussions first thing on a morning or last thing on an evening?

Every organisation’s target audience is different and when it comes to social media, although it can seem like users are universally similar, they can in fact be considerably different from each other and it’s important that you’re active at the most suitable times possible.

8. Remember it’s called ‘social’ media

People follow others on Twitter or Facebook, for example, to find out what they’re talking about. The majority of your updates should be related to your business in some way, shape or form, but you shouldn’t be afraid to publish something that’s off-topic or unrelated to your organisation / industry – it shows others that you’re human.

9. Don’t neglect your loyal followers

Over time, you’ll find the same people comment on your statuses, retweet your tweets and get involved with your discussions. With these people, it’s easy to become complacent with them, not thanking them for retweeting or simply assuming they’ll do it continually in the future.

You don’t need to interact with them every time they retweet, for example, but it’s important you don’t neglect them – a ‘thank you’ every now and again will be welcomed, as will retweeting suitable tweets of theirs, commenting on their statuses and getting involved with their discussions.

Social media promotion can help raise the profile of your brand tremendously, but it should never be carried out to the detriment of your content and the creation of suitable content should always be the key factor in any digital strategy.

Social media is very much to content what marketing is to a product – no matter how good your marketing is, if the product doesn’t live up to expectations, the whole strategy is destined to fail from the start.

Often more difficult than many first believe, regular social media management can take up a substantial amount of time and the only true way to ensure your activity is as effective as it can be is to plan, prepare and properly understand exactly what’s required.