Social Media Etiquette

By Adam  |  12 Jul 2015 21:00:00

The Guardian recently posted a very helpful article on their website about things to avoid when you are using social media professionally. If you're thinking of taking the first steps into the world of social media in order to promote your eCommerce business then you would do well to read it! But, if you don't have time, I'm just going to use this blog post to provide you with an overview of the points discussed in the article, as well as adding a few of my own thoughts into the mix.

One of the biggest points was just not to be rude. If you receive a lot of negative criticisms one day, don't respond with negativity. If you get a very rude review of your business and then respond on social media with something which is equally as rude, it's going to make your business look pretty bad. Furthermore, you should always, always try to accommodate customers over social media; if you say or do anything which will inconvenience anyone online, then everyone can see it and it's not going to look good. They also talked about use of Twitter hashtags; if you want to tweet something that ties into a trending hashtag, that's great! Just be sure that it doesn't seem forced to the point of being pathetic, as customers are especially unhappy with shameless advertising.

A couple of thoughts I would like to add, meanwhile, are that shameless advertising can be fine, if it is done in a very self-aware way. People like self-deprecation and if you share something which is jokingly very on the nose about being an advert, they might appreciate the humour. There have also been instances when companies have replied to very rude customers with simple one-liners which have gone on to become viral. This, of course, is a great form of advertisment, but it's a very thin line to tread. If a customer is very clearly in the wrong and being very rude, then maybe something like that will be appropriate, but this won't happen too often and you don't want to be rude to people on the off-chance that it will become viral. Keep things dignified. Keep things professional.

So, if you were unsure of how to conduct yourself on social media, hopefully this will be a helpful guide! We hope that you will have the best of luck with your eCommerce website and its social media presence.