Engaging in social networks begins with determining who to reach and how engagement satisfies their needs in order to make the most out of Social Marketing Best Practices. The audience in any social network is made up of culturally and philosophically different individuals and groups. In order to know what segment of a social stream may have some interest in your brand, best practices need to be formed around purpose, mission and matching values.

Purpose and usefulness are features which support the benefits expressed in brand messages. At the same time capacity to maintain relevance without diluting the message helps to sustain engagement and reduce unfollows and unlikes. So let’s take a look at some best practices for marketing in social streams.

1. Designs for effective channel strategies are based on follow worthy or likable personalities. Some qualities for building charisma include sincerity, humor and diplomacy.

2. Developing an organized framework to support each channel individually should include establishing an engagement rhythm that meets the needs of an audience.

3. Set a mission and purpose for each account which includes learning more about the audience you’re trying to reach. The conversation will give you clues about how to adapt your messages to connect your brand to what is useful to them.

4. Create content that is engaging, contextually relevant, and shareable. Polls, promotions, and questions can be used to expand basic editorial content for more social interactivity.

5. Construct a listening process to monitor brands as well as conversations related to each account because good listening skills makes better conversation easy.

6. Conversation is best supported with an information path and workflow to ensure company representatives can engage or respond in a congruent and appropriate way.

7. A social media brand guide will help to define the brand persona, characteristics, voice, and essence to be consistent with brand presentation and use in other media.

8. Customer service functions to solve problems and answer questions. It also builds prospect trust. In social streams a dedicated channel to satisfy customer needs is a best practice to promote appreciation and loyalty.

9. Timing is everything and clarity is essential. Optimized language and timing is a best practice to improve reach and engagement.

10. Performance metrics are essential to improve engagement and editorial strategy. Measures of social performance significantly differ from financial indicators. On the other hand, social performance does affect bottom line so distinct metrics need to be defined as relevant to how social media contributes to business accounting.