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By now, you already know about the importance of social media marketing. But even the most experienced brands are prone to making mistakes on social media every now and then. Remember when <a href="http://www.theverge.com/2015/1/13/7539683/blackberry-tweeting-from-iphone?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=10-absolute-truths-of-social-media-marketing-4977" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">Blackberry tweeted from an iPhone</a>? Or when <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3281218/Flat-GREAT-personality-IHOP-lands-hot-water-tweeting-joke-comparing-pancakes-women-s-breasts.html?utm_source=1851franchise.com&utm_medium=article&utm_campaign=10-absolute-truths-of-social-media-marketing-4977" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">IHOP compared its pancakes to, uh, women</a>? Take these as two examples of what not to do. To avoid putting your own brand in hot water, consider these 10 basic principles of social marketing. 1. Always publish 100% quality If your post doesn&#8217;t offer anything of value to your followers, you&#8217;ll find yourself going in the wrong direction on social media&#8212;and you&#8217;ll probably lose followers. As a brand, it&#8217;s important to create content that&#8217;s 10-times better than anything you can find in the search results today. 2. Never fight with a customer If one of your customers takes to social media to complain about the quality of your product or service, avoid getting into an argument. That&#8217;s because there&#8217;s a 100 percent chance you&#8217;ll lose&#8212;the customer is always right. Instead of arguing, take steps to make the customer happy. Or, simply direct the conversation off of social media so that there is less visibility. 3. Befriend influencers If you want to be an influencer on social media, start by paying homage to people who&#8217;ve already succeeded. Use social media to reach out to people who are influencers in your space. Tag them in posts, and reply to their tweets and updates. Show that you want to be a part of their team&#8212;it will help your social media and your business grow. 4. Offer something of value If you&#8217;re interested in benefitting from your social media marketing efforts, be sure to offer people who follow you something of value on a regular basis. When you do that, you&#8217;ll find that you reap what you sow and your efforts will be rewarded. 5. Highlight the positive Nobody wants to hear from somebody who&#8217;s complaining or highlighting challenges instead of successes. Give your followers a pleasant experience as they read your posts. 6. Know your analytics How many people did you reach on Facebook this week? How many tweet impressions did you generate this month? If you can&#8217;t answer those questions, it&#8217;s because you&#8217;re not studying your analytics. By reviewing your analytics regularly, you&#8217;ll see the types of posts and tweets that generate the most engagements. That&#8217;ll help you focus on what&#8217;s successful in future social media campaigns. 7. Be consistent Social media marketing can only be successful if it&#8217;s consistent. If you tweet once a month, you can expect little return for such limited effort. Make sure you&#8217;re consistently posting valuable content to your social media channels. How often you post depends on your industry and your audience, but at least once a day is a good rule of thumb. 8. Learn to evolve Even if you think you&#8217;re caught up with the current state of social media, chances are you&#8217;re already behind&#8212;things will likely change a year from now, and what works today may not work in 2017. Make sure you&#8217;re always dedicating time to learning about social media marketing best-practices. 9. Don&#8217;t try to take on too much Just because there&#8217;s Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, Instagram, Snapchat, Tumblr and YouTube, doesn&#8217;t mean your brand has to be represented on all of them. If you&#8217;re limited on resources and try to market on all of those platforms, you might become a jack of all trades and a master of none. Instead, focus on a few platforms that are favored by people in your target market and learn how to be a marketing specialist on those select few. 10. Create a content calendar Create a content calendar that identifies the types of content you&#8217;ll post at various times throughout the year. Map out your content schedule at least three to six months in advance. Also, make sure you pay particular attention to important dates, such as holidays.

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Whatever you do, don’t break these rules—they could cost you your followers and your credibility. 

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