How to Mind Your (Social Media) Manners as a Small Business Owner

I would wager that everyone who has created a Facebook account has come across that annoying Facebook friend.

We all know this type of person and he or she can take many different forms. I admittedly have one of these friends. For anonymity’s sake, we will call him Peter.

The Social Media Business Fail

Peter hosts a radio show. He loves to talk about–and attempts to get everyone he has ever met in his life to listen to–his show. Unfortunately, no one ever does.

Not because the radio show is necessarily bad, rather he over does it — especially on social media. It has gotten to the point where no one wants to have anything to do with his product or Peter.

He has three different Facebook brand pages, a Twitter account, and a “friend” Facebook account just for the show. He posts content about his radio show approximately every two seconds.

In short, he is always clogging up my news feed and uses the show page as a political mouthpiece from time to time.

Peter is failing at social media.

How to Avoid Being a Social Media Pain

There are plenty of things wrong with this scenario. Yet, somehow, Facebook has not used its powers to weed these types of people out of the social media realm entirely. They exist everywhere and sadly, most do not even understand how unbearably irritating they can be.

Peter is a prime example of what every small business should know on how to avoid being a social media pain. Not only so a) you don’t become that person, but b) to correctly and successfully market your business.

To ensure you do not end up like Peter here are four simple ways to mind your social media manners on Facebook and other social media networks.

1. You only need one social media page for one business.

That’s right, folks, just one.

There are a few reasons why your business only needs one social media account per social media network. First, there is the practical reason. If someone is searching for your business on social media networks, having multiple accounts for the same product or service will confuse the customer and turn them off before they get to know you.

Peter’s radio show has a couple different Facebook brand pages and a friend account. He would make things easier on himself and his prospective customer by consolidating all of his social media presence into a single page.