Social

Social media is great. It helps us build relationships with merchants and share all the cool stuff we do. But it also opens up opportunities to say the wrong thing, put off customers, and damage our brand.

For that reason, we're thoughtful and deliberate about what we post on social media. This section lays out the channels we use, the types of content we share, how we format posts, and the way we respond to customer feedback. (If you're sweating over hashtags and images, we'll cover those, too.)

Social channels

Pixel Union's social channels are managed by the marketing team. We have a presence on most major platforms, including:

• Twitter - Product news, blog content, co-promotions, company culture, media mentions, job postings, support status updates (basically, a little bit of everything)

• Facebook - Product news, blog content, agency shoutouts

• Instagram - Product news, merchant features, agency shoutouts

• LinkedIn - Product news, recruiting content, agency case studies

We also have a few less active accounts, including Pinterest and YouTube... we're working on it. 😊

Writing for social media should generally follow the points outlined in the Voice and tone and Language and grammar sections. The Word list is also helpful for ensuring a consistent spelling of "ebook."

Post formatting

Some social media platforms have a character limit. Others don’t. For the most part, we try to keep our social media copy short and snappy.

• Twitter - 280 characters. Feel free to tack on an emoji if it feels right.

• Facebook - No limit, but aim for one to three short sentences.

• Instagram - No limit, but try to keep it to one sentence or a short phrase. Hashtags (see below) belong in the comments, not the caption.

• LinkedIn - Multiple paragraphs are fine so long as you don't lose the thread. Think short case studies and product launches with clear calls to action.

For blog posts and content from our website, we use a plugin called Meta Tags WP to set custom open graphs for social sharing. Check the images and copy there if linked content looks wonky.

Public relations

The more active we are on social media, the more we open ourselves up to questions, comments, and complaints from the public. A lot of the time, the response we get is positive (Likes! Heart eyes emoji! Merchants telling us how much they love our products!), but sometimes it's not.

Here are some guidelines for dealing with those unavoidable, icky social situations.

• Respond quickly. Even if you can't offer a solution right away, let the commenter know that we've received their message and are looking into it.

• Exhibit empathy. Our products power people's businesses, so when something goes wrong, it's a big deal. Using a genuine, empathetic tone shows customers we're taking their concerns seriously.

• Own mistakes. Nobody's perfect. Acknowledging mistakes and taking ownership of them humanizes us, and helps build transparency and trust.

• Move the conversation off social media. Providing support over social is a dicey proposition. Better to take the conversation off social media, where you can defuse the situation one-on-one (and prevent others from joining the bitchfest).

• Don't take it personally. Customers aren't angry at you, they're angry about the situation they're in. Never take nasty comments personally or respond to them in a negative, defensive manner. You're doing a great job.

Tags and hashtags

With the exception of Instagram, we employ hashtags rarely and deliberately. We may use them to promote an event or connect with partners, but we don't use them to appear hip or to capitalize on internet trends (#yolo, #squadgoals, #sorrynotsorry).

On Instagram, we list hashtags within the first comment of a post rather than the caption. There's no limit, but we generally include 8-12 (#shopify, #shopifyseller, #ecommerce, #ecommercestore are some of our most-used hashtags). If we're featuring merchant content, we always credit them in the caption as well as by tagging the image.

On Twitter, we use hashtags both within our tweet copy and at the end (but generally, no more than one or two per tweet). #BFCM and #Shopify are two of our most frequently used hashtags. We "@" mention when it makes sense to do so, and we start all replies with @[handle] to ensure they stay off our main page.