Due to huge influence of social media websites, search engines have to take into account the results generated on those websites in order to provide relevant and useful results to the search engine users. Therefore, social media optimization helps you establish a connection with search engines, which has a positive impact on search engine optimization, and thus results in better ranking for your brand.
Social network influence is measured through likes and follows, which are perceived as votes, proof of the quality website. Thus, search engines take social signals as factors that reflect the importance and the influence of a website, and therefore, these results will affect ranking.
Guidelines
Every social network has its own guidelines and terms of use. You should follow the guidelines in order to avoid a certain account being suspended.
Some of the most common restrictions:
Text and URLs in the cover photo
Facebook used to prohibit the usage of URLs and any contact information in the cover photo. Although this is no longer the case with Facebook, you should be aware of the fact that social networks sometimes have specific requirements when it comes to cover photos, as well as profile photos.
Conditions when organizing online promotions
Online promotions are heavily regulated by social networks as they can often be misused to gather user data. Depending on the social network, you might organize an online promotion directly on your social media account, or you might be required to use an application to host an online promotion.
In both of these cases, you are required to clearly state the terms and conditions of the promotions which will include the rules for the promotion, as well as the part that will refer to the privacy policy of the data gathered during the promotion. These requirements follow the laws related to the collection of data and privacy, which is why you have to take them into account when organizing any type of promotion.
Other limitations
Each social network has some limitations you should be aware of when using a certain social network. The complete list of limitations and rules is stated in the terms of use for each social network, but we will point out some of the most relevant and the most important limitations you should be aware of:
Facebook limitations
Facebook page names must:
Not consist solely of generic terms (e.g., “pizza”);
Use proper, grammatically correct capitalization and may not include all capitals, except for acronyms;
Not include character symbols, such as excessive punctuation and trademark designations;
Not include superfluous descriptions or unnecessary qualifiers;
Not mislead others into thinking it is an official Page of the Page’s subject matter or is authorized by an authorized representative of the Page’s subject matter; and
Not violate someone’s rights
When it comes to tagging other users within an image or a post:
You must not inaccurately tag content or encourage users to inaccurately tag content.
The full list of guidelines for Facebook pages is available here:
https://www.facebook.com/page_guidelines.php
Twitter limitations
Although Twitter does not have specific limitations in terms of how many people you can follow and how many times you should tweet, Twitter accounts, especially the new ones, are monitored in order to detect any type of automation and excessive activity in order to avoid spam. Here are some of the actions that might be considered as spam:
You have followed and/or unfollowed large amounts of users in a short time period, particularly by automated means (aggressive following or follower churn).
You repeatedly follow and unfollow people, whether to build followers or to garner more attention for your profile.
Your updates consist mainly of links, and not personal updates.
You post duplicate content over multiple accounts or multiple duplicate updates on one account.
You post multiple unrelated updates to a topic using #, trending or popular topic, or promoted trend.
Randomly or aggressively following, favoring or Retweeting Tweets.
According to the Twitter rules, accounts that are inactive for more than six months may also be removed without further notice. You can access the complete list of rules and guidelines by visiting Twitter terms of use: https://twitter.com/tos
Google+ limitations
Unlike other social networks, you are not allowed to host online promotions directly on Google+ but you should host them on a separate site.
You may not run contests, sweepstakes, or other such promotions (“Promotion”) directly on Google+ or in a manner that requires use of G+ features or functionality, except by pre-approved means. You may display a link on Google+ to a separate site where your Promotion is hosted so long as you (and not Google) are solely responsible for your Promotion and for compliance with all applicable federal, state and local laws, rules and regulations in the jurisdiction(s) where your Promotion is offered or promoted.
LinkedIn limitations
LinkedIn requires providing accurate information and using real name on profiles. When it comes to profile images on LinkedIn you should not:
Upload a profile image that is not your likeness or a head-shot photo.
You can go through LinkedIn terms of use here: http://www.linkedin.com/
Evaluation
Using social media in the purpose of promoting and improving a business requires a lot of monitoring and analysis from your part in order to evaluate the performance and determine whether the results are satisfactory.
In case the results are not as expected, you have to change the approach and method you use with social media marketing. Try to experiment and change some parts of your strategy, such as timing, and then evaluate the results again. Determining the right problem and cause of the strategy being unsuccessful will help you change your social media approach.
