Adams & Knight Marketing Blog
POSTED BY: Karen Belletsky

7 social media mistakes you should avoid

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Do your social media habits inform or infuriate your fans and followers?

If you’re not 100 percent sure one way or the other, best to find out now because nothing’s worse for B2B marketers than to be alienating potential prospects for business . . .instead of strengthening ties with them.

Here’s our list of seven absolute social turn-offs:

1. Posting the exact same update on all your social channels. Yes, it’s important to leverage the combined power of our your social media channels. But, just like in real life, how you talk to your friends (on Facebook) is very different from how you talk to business colleagues (on LinkedIn). So copying and pasting one update, onto another social platform (or more) with no regard for who you’re talking to, can only get your message or content ignored. Or worse, tuned out completely.

2. Posting the same type of content day after day. This tends to happen when businesses want to share every single event-related photo, they take at say, an awards banquet or when staff is helping out in community. 

Two reasons why this is a mistake. Number one, it’s boring. Number two, it leaves fans wondering “Is that all they’ve got to talk about?” Plus, savvy followers know that Facebook offers a photo album feature. So if you’ve got a lot of photos of a single event, you can easily create an album to hold all of them . . . and then do a single post (or two, max) with one that features a montage or “pic-stitch” of the three or four most interesting ones. Then, you can invite followers and friends to look at album to see more.

3. Making the social media post “pure tease.” Nothing is more annoying than forcing your fans to think your post is about one thing . . . when it’s really about something else. Your followers’ time is valuable. Respect it. Put some meat into the actual post…perhaps a fact or stat they’ll find valuable and make them want to continue following you. But for heaven’s sake, don’t just try to get them to click on a link for all the information.

4. Not being relevant. What you say on social media is as important as what you say through advertising and public relations. Posts/updates/tweets should be integrated with your organization’s marketing, sales and services goals. So while it’s great to glom onto whatever the trending news story is, you need to explain to followers what the heck it has to do with your brand or product. In other words, give the holiday greetings a rest, unless you produce holiday greeting cards.

5. Taking social media too seriously. It’s okay to be a little fun and irreverent on social media from time to time. As the Joker said, “why so serious?” Have a personality. Remember, people do business with people.

6. Not thinking visually. Many business timelines look like a one continuous stream of the organization’s logo, post after post, day after day. The right visual will help your post stand out in a very cluttered world. Take a couple extra minutes to find an appropriate, copyright-free image online.

7. Posting the wrong link. Don’t you hate it when you click on a link to a referenced article . . . and instead it links to the organization’s homepage? Your followers are busy. They’re not going to search your website for the promised article. Generally, it’s a major coup if you get them to click ONCE. Don’t blow it. Double check your links, before pushing “post.”

Since the world of social is still new, everyone will make mistakes. But developing better social habits and avoiding just a few of the mistakes listed here can go a long way into converting your fans and followers into brand advocates. And ultimately into new customers.

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