There are so many rules to social media. So many tips on what to post, how to post, even where and when to post! It’s kind of a nightmare when you are first dipping your toes into the social media pond. I’ve boiled down the do’s and do not’s into 10 simple social media no-no’s to remember. As long as you avoid these social media mistakes, your platform should be golden. 1. Thank everyone who likes, favorites, shares, retweets, follows or adds you. Whereas we get that you’re trying to show that you’re grateful for the interaction, thanking us, and everyone else who interacts with you, is annoying. It clutters up our feed with thank yous to random accounts that we do not know or care about, and clogs up your own timeline and page when you could be using that space to share about your company. A well placed thank you is great! Just don’t over do it. Also, do not group-thank accounts either. It comes off as not genuine and like you’re fishing for interactions. 2. Overpost and clog up feeds and timelines. Similar to how clogging your follower’s feed with thank yous is annoying, so is oversharing and over posting content. No matter how interesting you find the information you share, if you choose to hog the content space, you may find yourself being muted, or even worse, unfollowed. 3. Share the same content over and over… and over. Have you ever seen accounts that just keep sharing their same blog post fifty times a day, five days a week? I have. And it did not make me read the post. In fact, it made me tune the post out. Diversify your content that you share, and diversify the type of content. Don’t just share articles, also incorporate videos, quotes, pictures, infographics, tips, and etcetera. Have a piece of content that you think is especially grand? Then go ahead and repost it a couple times that day, and reshare a few days later. Just don’t overdo it. Pizza every Friday is great, pizza seven days a week, three times a day is gross. 4. Follow everyone who follows you. Follow randoms. Follow Anything. You get a follow, and you get a follow and YOU get a follow! Just kidding. Treat your followers like your circle of friends. Ask yourself these three questions to see if following them is beneficial: Can you learn from them? Can you earn their loyalty or consumership? Can you employ them? If the answer is yes, then go ahead and follow them because they add value. If not, you are just clogging up your own feed with useless content. In addition, you should keep your number of followers and people that you are following close. Someone who follows a million people but only has eighty followers themselves looks pitiable, and someone who has a million followers but only follows a few looks closed off and like they aren’t there to interact or learn from their customers, but are there to advertise. 5. Share whatever you feel like sharing. If your content is irrelevant then you will be irrelevant. Whenever you create, devise, or share content, you should always do it with your audience in mind. Are you a travel blog sharing your experiences around the world? Share travel stuff. Are you into marketing? Your content should be marketing centered. A finance nerd? Then don’t share TMZ’s latest dish on the Kardashians. Identify what area you want to be associated with and stick to sharing content in that topic. 6. Choose an extreme persona that’s either personal or professional. Social media is for people. People are emotional, feeling beings. If you’re all business on twitter you risk boring your followers to death, and if you’re too personal you can hurt your professional image. The answer is to find the sweet spot between the two. Go ahead and share that piece that completely highlights how smart and innovative your business is that’s brimming with data and statistics, but don’t forget to also share content that shows your company's fun, human side either. I once read that you can not please everyone because you are not pizza. This is true, but you can get close to pleasing everyone by keeping your content balanced, fresh, valuable and entertaining. 7. Post whenever you get an itch to. Posting inconsistently is exactly how to get lost in the world of social media. If you only post once a week or so, your followers will forget all about you. If people search your company and see that you haven't posted in months, they are liable to think that you are inactive, or even worse, that your company is no longer in business. Definitely post everyday, at least once a day. Otherwise, you’ll never show up in timelines and your brand will never be exposed. 8. Auto D.M. your followers. Few things make me feel more insignificant than a mass-messaged DM pleading me to hire company so-and-so to handle my business needs. The messages always seem generic and fake, and leaves a feeling of distaste towards the company who sent it. A simple click to my profile and you can see that i'm not only not a business owner, but that I am only a college student. I am not a member of your target audience and I am not in need of your services. Instead, since you took the easy way out by automatically messaging your followers, you wasted your followers' time and made your account appear superficial. Social media is all about real connections and if your company cannot take to time to cultivate those connections, then you are wasting your time. 9. Share anything you want without giving credit. This is exactly what you want to do if you’d like to end up in jail or with a hefty fine. Stealing is stealing, be it robbing a bank or robbing a photographer of their art. It is illegal to steal content from others and share it as your own. Do not crop out watermarks or company logos and always give credit to the source if possible! 10. Be unresponsive. Picture this: You are the owner of a pizza pub and set up a twitter page. You have a great picture of your logo, an awesome bio all about your company, and regularly share great content all about pizza. A potential customer tweets to you asking what beers you have on tap… and you never respond. Boom! Just like that you’ve lost your customer. Not only should you actively respond to people who tweet to you, you should also search your company’s name and related terms to your industry. For example, California Pizza Company searches for the term “pizza” and tweets to users who are talking or complaining about pizza. Also, search your competitor's name! I once tweeted to Sprint complaining about my service, lo and behold, Verizon tweeted to me that I should switch to them. That’s what I like to call marketing gold.
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Author@littlemissmktg is a current marketing student at Northern Kentucky University. She loves all things branding and marketing and welcomes any comments or insights. Archives
January 2017
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