Are You Making Any of These Social Media Errors?

Social media marketing is usually a terrific way to engage, find and sell new clients on your company, as long as you aren’t at risk of making it harder on yourself. Social media blunders are very easy to step into, and incredibly messy to emerge from. Social media is important to do correctly! Creotivo.com reports that a full 74 percent of brand marketers saw an increased web traffic after putting in a mere 6 hours per week on social media, while an astonishing 83 percent have actually abandoned a purchase after a negative customer service occurrence.

So in the interest of not having that occur to your business, here are five common social media mistakes to make sure you avoid!

  1. Not engaging with your audience – You should always be actively engaging your social media visitors. Seek advice, conduct polls, share funny stories (hopefully somewhat relevant) and ask their opinions: they’ll gladly provide them, and you’ll be far wiser and closer to your goals in a number of ways.
  2. Lacking excitement or passion – If you’re not excited about your brand, it’s likely to be very hard to get anyone else passionate about it, either. Communicate this in your postings, and in your campaigns. We all want to create a buzz about our businesses, but it starts with you!
  3. Constant promotion – Nobody wants to be constantly pitched to, and there is no place this is more true than in social media. Once you’ve developed a relationship and trust, it’s going to be much easier to insert the sporadic (soft) selling message.
  4. Not responding to customers – Sometimes companies are so busy either touting themselves or their products, they completely ignore or miss customers and prospects posting their concerns, questions or complaints on these very platforms! What goodwill or brand awareness you have can be destroyed very quickly by ignoring your customer service opportunities!
  5. No coherent social media strategy – Not having, or not understanding why, you’re using social media is a recipe for floundering, and wasting a great deal of money and time. Moreover, not every business is well-suited to every platform, so give this some thought.

We’ll leave you with a link to a stellar example of what NOT to do! In an example that’s being shared widely, (much to their chagrin) the food site Epicurious. After the recent Boston marathon bombing, they sent out these unfortunate tweets.