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February 2016 Social Media Tips & Best Practices

February 23, 2016 by ShareASale Author 1 Comment

 

This infographic was made to be a handy guide for both Merchants and Affiliates to reference when posting on social media. You want to ensure you are presenting your brand, your site and your blog in the best light possible. Follow these simple sizing, formatting and timing guidelines and you will be off to a great start this year. 

MERCHANTS

Every post counts as a reflection on your brand. Make sure that each message is consistent and visually appealing to best represent the products or services you sell.  Use authentic and unique language – don’t become a social media robot with generic copy and stock images! You would be surprised how just a little promotion on social channels can go a long way for even the simplest of posts, especially with a well thought-out campaign behind it. 

Don’t discount Instagram, while you cannot “click” a link on it, there are many creative ways it is used to highlight a product or show off your brand, and it is VERY popular with distinct age groups that you may not normally reach. While it may not be very scientific, supporting a presence on Instagram is great for branding and awareness. 

It should go unsaid, but do not continuously or inconsistently post on social outlets. Users could interpret this as a form of spam and get “turned off” by it. It is an easy way to lose followers, and give people a negative view of your brand. Schedule a few posts per day at the correct times, and you should see success in your campaigns. 

AFFILIATES

Affiliates, your goal is to have people clicking on those links as much as possible. For this to happen, there are some things to keep in mind: first and foremost, pay attention to the timing. You should be able to use a general analytics page which will show you when you had the most traffic and engagement on your posts. Use this information to your benefit and TEST, make some posts around the “hot” times and maybe even experiment with promoting them.

Utilize the ShareASale Custom Link creator to create short links (we call them ‘License Plate Links’) that you can use on your social media sites without taking up much space in your posts. More information on these can be found here:

Can’t Find the Right Link? Create Your Own! – ShareASale Blog

Remember that hashtags you use on Instagram also work when you share it to Facebook and Twitter (and vice versa). Utilize them wisely, 2-3 hashtags is a good number to increase the number of views of your posts. Having the option to make a great visual post on one social media site and then share it (with all the hashtags intact) to two others is a big help in boosting that post organically.

Resources:
Hubspot – The Best Times to Post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other Social Media Sites
Hubspot – Ultimate Cheat Sheet to Social Media Image Dimensions
Buffer – The Complete Guide to Social Media Formatting
Convert With Content – 8 Ways to Stand Out On Instagram

Additional Resources

Create A Product Showcase For Your Blog in 5 Minutes - ShareASale Blog
Create A Product Showcase For Your Blog in 5 Minutes – ShareASale Blog
Product Showcases allow you to quickly highlight specific sub-sets of a retailer’s products based on either category or keyword. They keep themselves up to date with the most recent products available based on the keyword or category that you select!
5 Tools Every Affiliate Should Use on ShareASale - ShareASale Blog
5 Tools Every Affiliate Should Use on ShareASale – ShareASale Blog
The most successful Affiliates take advantage of all the helpful tools at their disposal. ShareASale has many available, and here are five you can use today!  
Merchants - 5 Ways to Make Your Affiliate Program Stand Out - ShareASale Blog
Merchants – 5 Ways to Make Your Affiliate Program Stand Out – ShareASale Blog
Affiliate programs are plentiful and the program manager’s goal is to get their program in front of the best affiliates. The competition can be stiff, but that doesn’t mean it’s impossible. In fact, quite the opposite is true. There are many ways affiliate managers can draw attention to their program to help it stand out against the noise

Filed Under: Merchants Tagged With: license plate links, marketing, marketing tips, social media marketing, social media tips

ShareASale Author

ShareASale Author

Comments

  1. Aaron Schoenberger says

    June 8, 2016 at 5:55 pm

    Posting quality content is a great way to represent your brand and attract more followers and engage existing ones. With social media becoming an integral part of marketing its always good to stay on point.

    Reply

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