- This is a multi-part question. Please create a visual post for your blog on a topic specific to your business and answer the questions below. This involves critical thinking. What is important to your business and visitors? The image must be the focal point of the post telling the story or conveying a point. You may include multiple images. The goal is to visually convey a message with minimal text. Please pay attention to what was discussed in class. Ensure that you include a link to the blog post in your answer. Do not forget that this needs to be included in your hard copy. I am marking what you hand in with your hardcopy but also need to see the digital version on your blog. If it is not online for me to view (in addition to the hard copy), I cannot mark this question. (4 Marks)
Title: The Do’s and Don’ts of social media marketing
Social media is a powerful tool for business owners to promote their brand, drive traffic to their website and establish a strong reputation. That being said there are some basic rules you should follow to ensure that you are using this tool to your business advantage. Here are a few do’s and don’ts of the social media marketing that you should keep in mind.
- Be authentic and transparent
- Connect with your audience in a conversational tone, and share real stories and insights about your brand to show that it is authentic and transparent.
- Provide value to your audience
- Share content that is relevant and valuable to your target audience and your audience’s interests and needs.
- Engage with your audience and respond to comments
- Responding to comments and feedback is a great way to engage with your audience and it shows that you value them and their opinions.
- Be consistent
- Posting consistently can help increase the audience and brand awareness of your business.
- Format your content for each platform
- It is important to tailor your content for each platform so that they look like they belong on each separate platform and fit the size requirements.
- Use clickbait or misleading headlines
- Avoid using clickbait and misleading headlines so that you do not trick or mislead your audience because that can damage your brand’s reputation and break the trust of your audience.
- Over-promote your products or services
- Social media should be a tool to build your brand awareness and create relationships with your audience by providing value.
- Ignore negative feedback or comments
- Use negative feedback that you receive as an opportunity to learn and improve and make things right.
- Buy followers or engagement
- When you buy followers you are essentially buying bots or fake accounts that will not engage with any of the content you post.
- Don’t spam your followers
- Limit and regulate the number of posts you share per day on each platform to avoid your audience being overwhelmed or bombarded with content.
- Why did you choose the specific image(s)? (3 Marks)
For my blog post, I chose 3 images that specifically go with my topic and what my blog post is about. For the first image, I chose a picture of someone using their mobile device with multiple social media apps displayed. The main reason I chose this image is that it is the first thing people see when they look at my blog and it paints a clear picture of what my blog is going to be about.
The image itself reinforces the idea that social media is mostly a mobile platform that people use to connect with each other. Because this image reinforces the idea that social media is mostly a mobile platform it relates to the do’s and don’ts of the blog post and the idea of using social media as a way to not only promote your business but build relationships, connect with your audience and provide them with value. By using this image it draws the attention of the reader because when you use visuals it keeps the reader on your site longer than if it were only text.
The other two images or infographics that I chose were thumbs up and thumbs down which go with the do’s and don’ts section of my blog. The reason I chose these two images is that they visually represent the do’s and don’ts of social media marketing in a simple easy to understand way. The green thumbs up clearly represents the do’s of social media marketing and the red thumbs down clearly represents the don’ts. Along with the thumbs up and thumbs down people also instinctively associate green with good and red with bad which is another visual element of my images that helps convey a message with minimal text.
- Explain in detail why the image(s) was beneficial for the post. (3 Marks)
The images that I used for this post were beneficial because they all catch the attention of the reader and provide them with a visual representation of what this blog is about while using minimal text. The image of the person holding a phone with social media apps open was beneficial for my post because it is relevant to the topic of my post and conveys the idea that this post is about social media and how to use it to connect with other people in a beneficial way. Because as I mentioned before this image of a person holding a phone with social media apps on it represents building relationships and connecting with your audience I feel that it was an effective way to visually support my message and make my blog post more engaging.
The other images that I used that I felt were beneficial for my post were the thumbs up and thumbs down visuals or infographics. By using the thumbs up and thumbs down to separate the sections of content I feel that it is very beneficial for my post because it makes the post easier to read while also following the f pattern for readers. It also provides the readers with a visual representation of the do’s and don’ts because most people know and understand that thumbs up is good and thumbs down is red. Overall by using the thumbs up and thumbs down in my blog it was beneficial because I was able to visually communicate what my blog content was about and I was able to make my post more visually appealing and accessible which can help create an impact on my readers.