In today’s world a Social Media presence has become mandatory! If you belong to an era where you used to hangout with your friends and come back simply with lots of pleasant memories,you won’t be considered a part of the “in” crowd. Nowadays, everything, right from your food to your matching pair of sandals makes its way first to your Instagram and Facebook profiles and then the food makes its way to your stomach and the sandals find their way to your feet. Nothing goes unannounced on the social media platform.

The Internet, particularly the social media platform is similar to the midas touch, whatever it touches turns into gold. And that too literally. If you give it a thought, earlier businesses prospered as a result of “the word-of-mouth publicity”, but since the internet stormed in, it had opened floodgates of opportunities for businesses to prosper. Having an online presence has become as important as the business itself. If you haven’t brought your business online, there are chances that it might perish as a result of the extensive competition it would receive from the businesses that are already online because being online makes you easily accessible.

Being on the internet is one thing, and being a member of the social media has its own benefits. Anyone who has a Facebook or an Instagram account might see different “Pages” of certain celebrities, authors and even different very sought-after brands. And the number of people that like these pages is actually pretty extensive. These days every shopping website has a page on Facebook and an account on Instagram. This is done solely with the intention of garnering more followers and reaching out to millions, billions, trillions….etc. So, what is being implied here is that after you get your business online, you need to get it on all social platforms as well. This lets you connect to the ones you couldn’t reach out to. And once you are online on the various social media platforms you need to follow certain decorums on these platforms that would bring you a tad bit closer to your intention of popularising your brand.

When you are the admin or creator or owner, whichever term you prefer, you have on your shoulders, the tremendous burden of keeping your followers and prospective customers really interested in what you wish to sell them. So here are some basic norms to be upheld while you are promoting your business on any Social Media platform-

Be Original- Nobody likes counterfeits. So what you are supposed to do is- be original! Whatever you are posting , whichever product you wish to promote, make sure you do it in a very original way. Put a lot of thought in how you would be presenting it, do not and I really mean do not COPY! Let your unique personality be reflected in your way of presenting things, let people be intrigued by what you have to give to the world. Nobody admires plagiarism.

Don’t like your own posts- Liking your own posts is never and would never be in vogue, and doing that would either make you look foolish or like a narcissist. So, make sure you don’t succumb to this trend. No matter how much you appreciate your product, or your post, exercise some self-control and refrain from liking your own posts.

Define your goals well in advance- When you begin your journey on any social media platform, clearly define your goals, remember what you wish to achieve with your online presence. Remember that your social media presence has a purpose and that is to enable your business to grow and keep it thriving forever. Whatever you are planning for the social media marketing would have to be designed for the long-run if you wish to retain your customers and make new ones at the same time.

Don’t share too much- People would love to know what latest improvisations are made to the product they are interested in buying or the new trendy designs that are flooding the market. But nobody and trust me nobody would want to know if you brought a new house or they won’t be interested in the cat’s picture that you shared on your business page. It would be better to just stick to business. These kind of posts, a cat’s picture or your new house would look pretty on your own personal Facebook account but not on your business page.

Choose the right platform- There is a plethora of social media platforms but you cannot be everywhere. So choose the right platform to promote your brand. Most people prefer Facebook as the mode of connecting with the population. And when you think you are all set and functioning really well on one platform, you can think of taking your business on the other platforms as well. Care has to be taken that you don’t keep repeating the same content everywhere. Chances might be that there would be certain followers who would follow you on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at the same time. If they see the same post or the content splashed across all these different social media platforms, they would eventually tire of reading the same thing over and over again. So, be creative with your posts, even if you wish to post the same thing, present it a unique manner.

Don’t go overboard- Being active is fine, but going overboard with it would irritate your followers. Do not keep posting about your products every 5 to 10 mins and bombard their newsfeed with your updates. Keep posting your stuff but at regular intervals, do not go overboard with it because soon people might start resenting your products popping up in their newsfeed after every 2 mins. So post your stuff but without overdoing it.

So, these are just a few things you ought to know if you wish to garner a large number of followers without seeming annoying. Gone are the days where people used to stuff your door with pamphlets in order to shower you with the knowledge of their existence. Social Media is the buzzing hub of such promotional activities. So exercise some caution while you are marketing your products on these platforms as they are not without certain etiquettes.