By Mackenzie Grannan
When it comes to developing social media content, knowing how to effectively communicate on each channel is necessary to navigate the different platforms. Just as you need to know your audience and industry, you will need to know the characteristics and best practices that make each social media platform unique. From the casual chats to the formal, we’ve got the insights and tips to finding your way around the leviathan that is social media:

Emojis are your friend

Emojis give the old phrase “show don’t tell” a whole new meaning. Instead of using fancy words to spruce up your captions, emoticons can help convey your message quickly and easily. Catch your reader’s eye by popping a spunky reaction at the beginning or end of your message. Emojis make the perfect touch for exciting news, event promotions, and posts. They are especially helpful when you have limited characters to use, like on Twitter. Not to mention, emojis make your content fun, relatable, and personable.

Not everything needs to be abbreviated

Back when you had to pay per text and count your characters, abbreviations were all the rage. Now, times have changed! While it makes sense to shorten common phrases and use acronyms for ridiculously long names or titles, not everything has to be modified. If you are making up nicknames and abbreviations for everything, you will only confuse your audience. Instead, write from the perspective that your audience has no previous knowledge of the topic or discussion at hand. Nine times out of ten, it makes the most sense to simply say what you mean or spell it out. 

LinkedIn versus the world

For most of the conversations happening on social media today, people interact pretty casually. The exception to this, with some flexibility, is our top recruitment and connections platform, LinkedIn. Here, everything is all business all the time. I recommend approaching your profile setup and the dialogue on this site as you would a professional job interview. LinkedIn is a digital web of resumes and networking, where people go to recruit, build business relationships, and promote their companies or work. Unlike the dynamic of other apps, it is not common practice to share your thoughts on last night’s episode of The Bachelor here.

Although this may be a stellar guide book for today, social media is constantly evolving. New platforms arise every day, and we have to do our best to monitor, study, and adapt to the changes. For consistent updates, techniques, and best practices, take a look at our full blog page!