A definitive best practice guide for social media.

1. BEST PRACTICE
FOR SOCIAL MEDIA
Ravi Prasad

2. THE TOP 20
The top 20 tips and guidelines for best
practice in social media.

3. 1. Define your mission and purpose
Ask yourself the question: what do we want to achieve through participating in social media ? It’s a common
sense question; what we do is defined by why we want do it. So it’s really important clearly define our mission
and purpose.
2. Be consistent
It’s important to be consistent. To be credible we need to be present and active. It means we need to allocate a
fixed amount of time each day to maintaining our social media presence – and sticking to it, week in, week out.
3. Provide value
If we’re in social media we’re competing for peoples time and attention – so we really need to make it worth
their while to interact with us. The best way to do this is by providing content or information that is
useful, interesting and of real value.
4. Monitor and respond
The more often you monitor your social media the better. Ideally you’re monitoring it constantly; however the
practical reality is that this is not always possible. As a rule of thumb, the more traffic in your social
channels, the more frequently you monitor them, so the time you need to spend may change over time. Best
practice, when starting out, set aside a minimum of two blocks of time twice daily to monitor and respond.

4. 5. Be nice with content and comments
If you wouldn’t say it to your mother, partner, child or employer, don’t say it on-line. If you would not be
comfortable seeing what you’ve said written on the front page of a newspaper, the don’t say it. Best practice:
conduct yourself as if your record in social media lasts forever and nothing is private.
6. Prepare for crisis management
What happens if you receive bad press or there is a business crisis ? What happens if an angry customer
vents their frustrations in your social channels? Best practice: consider the possible crisis scenarios and
formulate a plan for each.
7. Plan for negative comments
What do you do if someone posts rude, offensive, discriminatory or inflammatory comments? Best practice:
remove them instantly and do not respond to the comment in any way.
For comments that are critical of your business, which may have a substantive basis, respond if
appropriate., try to draw the person involved into a private exchange outside of your social media channels.
Best practice: be constructive in your response. Negative comments can be deleted - but not while the
comment stream is active.
8. Be honest, disclose
If there is a commercial interest or conflict of interest, be open about it. Best practice: immediate disclosure.

5. 9. Say ‘thanks’
If people make the effort to leave a positive comment, thank them. If you think they have content that is worth
sharing, share it. Remember if you share or use someone's content, link to them or credit them. Best practice:
within 24 hours.
10. Make friends
If you’re ‘liked’ or followed, like or follow back. Best practice: within 24 hours.
11.Be credible
If you’re reposting someone else’s content, be careful, try to independently authenticate anything found on any
social networking site. Best practice: verify, if you can’t , say so.
12. Correct, retract, admit
If you have made an error in your social media or done or said something wrong, ‘own’ the error and make the
appropriate correction, retraction or admission - it’s important to maintain your credibility. Best practice
immediate action.
13. Keep secrets
Never disclose any internal conversations or deliberations. Never disclose commercially sensitive material –
about your own business or any one else's.

6. 14. Call to action
Where possible, and when appropriate, include a call to action – for example, ‘blog this’, ‘share this’, ‘retweet
this’.
15. Link to your other channels
Where possible and when appropriate, include a link to another of the channels you are using – for
example, find me on Face book, find me on twitter, find us on YouTube.
16. Do not sell
This is not about the sale; it’s about a relationship that may lead to a sale. Best practice: don’t use social media
as a direct sales channel.
17. Only speak when you have something to say
Unless you have a specific reason to communicate, don’t. Cluttering up an inbox or a time line will not make
you many friends. Best practice: don’t speak unless you have something to say.

7. 18. Track and learn
When it comes to what you are doing, try to understand what works, what doesn’t and why. Think of the
process as trying testing and learning. Also, try to understand where traffic is coming from – the
sources, frequency and times. Best practice: a daily analytics review.
19. Be helpful
If you can help someone, help them. Be positive, useful and constructive.
20. Be original
Don’t re-post the same material as everyone else. It’s often the case that the same material is posted
repeatedly, we don't want to contribute to the clutter and noise. Best practice: if you’ve seen it more than three
times in other places, don’t repost it.

8. About Ravi Prasad
Ravi’s worked for agencies including Leo Burnett, FCB, Ogilvy and Mather, Wunderman, One Digital, Tribal DDB
and John Singleton Advertising.
He’s a former senior strategy planner for agencies including Clemenger BBDO and Sapient Nitro.
He was also Head of Copy and Content for Euro RSCG Digital in Australia (Havas).
Over the years he’s won a lot of awards for his work, including the AUS Trade Silicon Valley Mission
ADMA, APMA, the Asia Pacific Advertising Festival and the LACP in Los Angeles.
In the last few years his Sony Playstation work for Ratchet and Clank ‘a Crack in Time’ won in both ‘Best Integrated’
and ‘Best Digital’ categories at APMA, his ‘The Premise’ campaign for Drambuie won two Gold Awards at W3 in
New York and was a finalist at AIMIA in Australia and his collaboration with Siori Kitajima was a finalist at the
inaugural Information is Beautiful Awards in London.
Ravi is the founder of the not for profit Friends with Things: www.friendswiththings.com.au and the on-line magazine
www.warholschildren.com
You can find Ravi on LinkedIn: http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=5597597&trk=tab_pro
Follow him on Twitter: @myintuition
E-mail him at: myintuition@yahoo.com

9. END