Social media success: Know your audience

We've been asking social media experts in the Pittsburgh region for their favorite tips and best practices for social media. Today's installment is from Shannon Baker, partner and director of PR and social media atGatesmanMarmion+Dave    .

Here's what Shannon has to say:

1. Know your audience. By knowing what your fans are looking for, you can continue to grow your fanbase and increase engagement by providing compelling content.
2. Define objectives and how you will measure performance of your social properties. Pay attention to analytics and insights, and use this intel to readjust social strategy if necessary.
3. React and respond to negative criticism in a timely manner. By listening to and being responsive to complaints, brands have the ability to turn users who may have had a bad experience into brand champions.
4. Don't Tweet at people – Tweet with them! Twitter is all about having an open dialogue with followers. The more active you are, the more you're likely to increase audience outreach.
5. Pay attention to larger trending conversations. There are many opportunities to provide an authoritative voice on behalf of your brand or the brands you represent.
6. Update your status during the most active times to ensure maximum audience outreach. For Facebook, best practices for updates include posting at least once a day between 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Best practices for Twitter include tweeting multiple times per day, especially during the most active time, which is between 3 and 6 p.m.
7. Utilize social editorial calendars to draft content and provide clients with a cohesive strategy that identifies posts, planning, trends and ways to measure social performance. The calendars add accountability to day-to-day management of social properties and can outline goals for the future.
8. Stay current! The social media industry is rapidly evolving. By staying up-to-date with the latest technologies and best practices, there will always be ways to implement forward-thinking into social properties.

Do you have tips you'd like to share about social media? Send those tips to Web producer Paul J. Gough at pgough@bizjournals.com. You also can learn more about our Social Madness presented by Spark Business from Capital One, a competition where you can show your business social-networking savvy.

Paul J. Gough is the web producer at the Pittsburgh Business Times. Contact him atpgough@bizjournals.com or (412) 208-3827. You can also follow him on Twitter.

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