Social media has changed the communication landscape for marketers. We know it can be hard to keep up, so the next time you’re in a pinch and don’t know how to solve a social media problem, consult this list—you might find the answer you’re looking for among these 50 social media best practices.

We’ve compiled the best benchmark tactics based on customer reviews, colleague interviews, and internal research into one comprehensive guide, 50 Social Media Best Practices. We covered everything from social media listening and engaging to advertising and measurement.

The beauty of social media is distinguished by your ability to adopt a unique voice, tone, and approach that suits your brand and customers. Use these 50 best practices we've listed below as guiding principles to help you create an effective strategy of your own. Be sure to also share with us your favorite best practice on Twitter by tweeting @ExactTarget using the hashtag #50SocialTips or sharing the tweet below.

For detailed information and recommendations on each best practice, download the full guide here.

Social Media Listening

1. Research where people are talking about you.
2. Go beyond Facebook and Twitter.
3. Create a keyword list that extends your listening reach beyond profile mentions.
4. Make listening a company-wide endeavor.
5. Develop relationships with influencers in your industry.
6. Create categories to organize mentions.
7. Draft reports to help shape future marketing endeavors.
8. Create a crisis management plan before it’s too late.
9. Automate what you can, but don’t remove the human element.
10. Sentiment analysis is a mixed bag, so fine tune the results.

Social Media Engagement

11. Create awareness.
12. Be mindful of over-sharing.
13. Don’t always feel compelled to jump in.
14. Be as transparent as your business allows.
15. Determine your tone.
16. Help your customers become experts too.
17. Be proactive.
18. Respond to negative and positive feedback.
19. Keep it short.
20. Followback.

Social Media Publishing

21. Treat each social network as its own entity.
22. Always provide an option to share.
23. Set up publishing and approval permissions and processes.
24. Build for mobile.
25. Don’t forget about nights and weekends.
26. Use your social networks to promote existing content.
27. Use your data to determine what works.
28. Set a content calendar that syncs up with other marketing objectives.
29. Implement tracking codes on links.
30. Don’t be afraid to experiment with different platforms and content.

Social Media Advertising

31. Set your advertising goals first.
32. Create both daily and lifetime budgets for your campaigns.
33. Research the social advertising platforms.
34. Fit your social campaigns in the context of other advertising initiatives.
35. Match available targeting options with your advertising objectives.
36. Test, test, test.
37. Automate wherever possible.
38. Don’t forget about time of day and scheduling.
39. Determine the metrics that will best represent your campaign status.
40. Establish your analytics rhythm.

Social Media Measurement

41. Align your objectives with your metrics.
42. Pick a goal.
43. Segment and trend.
44. Track and measure social media leads and purchases.
45. Measure cost savings.
46. Create a central dashboard to bring in disparate metrics.
47. Determine how you’ll define ROI.
48. Be prepared to pivot on everything.
49. Consider every available measurement tool.
50. Clichéd metrics aren’t for everyone.

Try one or two of the suggestions from each section, run your tests to see whether they work, and then hold on to or move away from each best practice. We hope this list gets you thinking differently about the ways you approach your social media efforts. And if you’ve got your own best practices, share them on Twitter using #50SocialTips or in the comments below.

I originally wrote this post on the Salesforce Marketing Cloud Blog.