​​We live in a world of constant notifications and updates. Your friend is posting pictures of her glamorous holiday and you're sitting on the couch downing your second glass of wine, wondering why you can't afford to go on vacation or do anything fun.

I recently learned that the hashtag was actually invented by a Twitter user in 2007 and not the company itself. In fact, they initially rejected the idea, thinking it was for nerds! Since then, hashtags have become such an integral feature of the social media world that I suspect my future children won’t ever refer to the “#” symbol as a pound sign.

Although hashtags have been around for over a decade I still see people using them ineffectively all the time. I’ve put together some basic dos and don’ts so that you can be a #socialmediaqueen. Or at least someone who knows how to hashtag properly.

Everywhere you look there are social media contests. Click like, tag two friends and share this post to be entered to win something awesome! 

Sound familiar?

Contests are a popular way to drive engagement and build your brand. However, there are a few things to keep in mind before you kick-off your next social media contest. One very important item we should address right away is the rules. Yes, social media has rules. Facebook specifically has a list of rules on what you can and cannot do with contesting.

Is this ground-breaking information to you? It shouldn't be! Here's one of the most common rules that we see broken time and time again. Can you guess what it is?

Share this post to win! Tag two friends to enter!

*Insert eye-rolling here*

This is a big no-no on Facebook. Here's what they have to say about it:

"Promotions may be administered on Pages or within apps on Facebook. Personal Timelines and friend connections must not be used to administer promotions (ex: “share on your Timeline to enter” or “share on your friend's Timeline to get additional entries”, and "tag your friends in this post to enter" are not permitted)."

Did we just crush your contest ideas? Sorry!

Don't worry! There are still great (legal) alternatives to contesting. The main thing to keep in mind with any contest is that you need to keep your barriers to entry very low to drive engagement. Asking people to do a million things for one entry will result in less people entering your contest. 

Instagram Contest Idea
Instagram is a great way to build organic content and user content. Poppy Barley does an amazing job of encouraging their customers to share their product photos with the hashtag #LuxuryForThePeople. When you click on this hashtag, over 1,100 images pop-up! This is marketing gold, people! Not only are you building a loyal social following, you're stocking your own content calendar with photos people actually care about. Not just non-stop stock photography!

Try creating a signature hashtag for your brand. Use that hashtag on everything and encourage your followers to use it. It might take a while to take off, but it's an easy contest idea and will guarantee you an endless supply of content if done properly!

Facebook Contest Idea
And we are back to biggest criminal of them all, Facebook contests! So, you can't get people to share to their timeline, and you can't get them to tag two friends... so what can you do?

Keep it simple!

One really simple contest idea is to pose a question to your audience. Example:

"We've reached 1,000 followers on Facebook. To celebrate, we're giving away "x"! All you have to do to enter is like this post and comment with your favourite color of "x" to be eligible to win. Contest closes October 16, 2017 at 4:00 p.m. (MST).

Pretty easy, right?

Simplicity is your friend and it's legal :)

What are your pet peeves with social media contesting? Let us know in the comment section below.

Until next time friends,

A.

P.S. If you're looking for help setting up your next contest, reach out to us! Simplified Social would love to help.
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One thing that I often say about social media for businesses, is that while it’s not super hard to be good at it, it’s really easy to be bad at it. With the right strategy and time put into it, social media is a great way to engage your audience and attract and retain customers. But things can also quickly go off the rails if you're not careful. The internet has the unique ability to be both instantaneous and forever, and we’ve all witnessed a few major companies have some serious social media fails over the years.

One of the more challenging areas of social media is not really a new problem at all. Negative customer feedback is something all businesses have had to deal with historically. Now, with social media, that feedback is just more public than ever before. Luckily for most small businesses, negative Facebook comments or tweets are something that only happens once in awhile (this is the part where I thank my lucky stars that I don’t run the United airlines twitter account) and not a daily occurrence. With that said, it’s important to know how to handle it ahead of time so that when it does come up you’re prepared to respond appropriately! The exact response will vary on a case-by- case basis but there are a few basic rules for dealing with customer complaints:

1. Don’t delete legitimate feedback or complaints

Just because the customer isn’t physically in your store or on the phone with you, doesn’t mean that you can just make can make them go away with the click of a mouse. If you hide or delete every negative comment or review that you receive it can often do more harm than good. At best, it’ll make you appear inauthentic and like you’re censoring your page. At worst, the person who originally commented will get even more frustrated and spread more negativity via social media or by word-of- mouth. Even if you can’t fix the problem, it’s better to at least acknowledge the complaint.

2. You should respond promptly but you don’t have to respond immediately

It is important to respond in a timely manner (people don’t like being ignored!), but it’s also important to take the time to think about your reply. It’s easy to take criticism of your business personally, especially if you’re an entrepreneur. The last thing you want to do is have a knee-jerk reaction that makes it look like you’re arguing with your customer rather than listening to them. Sometimes if I’m responding to a comment that involves a sensitive subject or a negative comment I’ll run it by a colleague just to get a second set of eyes and make sure my tone comes across the way I want it to.

Also - if you typically don’t monitor your social media over the weekend make sure you clearly communicate that on your profile!

3. Keep it short and sweet

A good response will contain three things: an apology, a indication that their feedback will be considered and passed on to the appropriate person, and an opportunity to take the conversation offline. Ask them to DM you with their contact info, or provide an email/phone number that they can get in touch to talk about their experience.

Your response might win the customer back. It might not. Either way, you will demonstrate what kind of company you are, and that you’re willing to listen and address concerns.

How have you dealt with negative feedback on social media before? Let us know in the comments!

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