Do You Use The Best Practices For Your Social Media?
Social media can be a beast to navigate when it comes to getting your brand out there. Are you struggling to capture your audience’s attention on social media? Well, I have the product for you! Kidding, but there’s truth to the statement. To maximize your business, you must maximize your presence to your audience. How do you do that, you ask? Best practices!
Every company you can think of uses best practices on their social media sites. Hubspot’s article, “The Ultimate Guide to Using Twitter for Business in 2020,” provides an exhaustive list of best practices to follow.
To use an example, I recently completed an audit of Netflix on Twitter. By doing this, I found great material every company should be emulating, but I also found mistakes the company itself, and others, should be watching out for.
What Makes Netflix Stand Out?
Netflix has a stand-out profile on Twitter. The site is highly unique on the platform. They post exclusive content on Twitter that you cannot find on their other social media sites. For instance, the majority of the content they post on Twitter are exclusive trailers of new movies/TV shows, as well as cast pictures that provide a behind-the-scenes perspective to their content. The site is creative and attention-grabbing. Images and gifs are a great way to catch the audience’s eye. Netflix does a great job of doing this. They provide daily content that features short clips, gifs, trailers, etc. I am sure this is why they have 7.1 million followers. Nobody likes wordy tweets full of unexciting information.
People want gifs! And memes! Thank you, Netflix!
Netflix has a consistent posting schedule, which is extremely important to your audience! If someone comes to see new content every day, and they are left to look at posts from the day before, it is hugely disappointing.
New content. Every. Day. Period.
Something interesting Netflix does is retweeting/quote tweeting content. This means that Netflix reposts content from other sources on its page. This is a form of engagement that is specific to Twitter. Not only does it allow for specific and constant posts, but it also helps Netflix engage with other pages.
Sprout Social’s article, “Best times to post on social media for 2019,” provides a list of the best times to post. Netflix meets this requirement. On most days, the network started posting around 10 am-12 pm and stopped their posting at approximately four in the afternoon. It is essential to have a consistent schedule of posting, so your followers know when they are guaranteed content when they log on.
New content + consistent posting = key
Not So Best Practices
Although Netflix is a creative platform that provides exclusive content, they have their errors.
Something I wasn’t fond of on Netflix’s site was their lack of engagement with their followers. The company loves to connect with other pages that are happy with Netflix’s content. However, Netflix shies away from commenting back to negative feedback. For example, Netflix recently canceled it’s original show, Anne With An E, after three seasons. If you look at the comments underneath Netflix’s recent posts, they made a big mistake by canceling the show! Die-hard fans of the show are angry, and they want answers…
Unfortunately, Netflix is radio-silent on the matter.
Community engagement is imperative. Netflix is sending a message loud and clear by not responding to its fans…
“We don’t care that you are upset.”
Another example of Netflix’s best practice failure is its undefined network. Netflix doesn’t have a mission statement. On Twitter, they change their bio almost every day. Their bios are usually quoting popular shows on the network. I find this cocky. Yes, Netflix is well known, and many people know they are a streaming service. However, they come off extremely unprofessional when they do not even provide a mission statement for their followers. Some may say that by changing their bio every day shows creativity. However, for those who do not know what Netflix is might be confused. The only link they provide on Twitter is their streaming website, but even that website does not have any information on what their service is about. So, for a company with no “about” page on their Twitter, and no link to a mission statement, it is hard to know the defining characteristics of the network.
Who are you? What are you about? What do you provide? We want to know, Netflix!
What Do You Think?
It is no secret that you must be on social media to build your brand’s image. However, you have to be extremely careful and diligent. Don’t be lazy. Post consistently and often. Post exclusively, and don’t leave your audience bored. You want to make sure whoever is looking at your page comes back to look at it the next day, and the next, and every day after that. If you can’t manage to make that happen, you aren’t using the best practices to maximize your brand.
What is your opinion of best practices? Please, leave a comment!
Hannah Jordan's Social Media Blog 