Avoiding Common Social Media Mistakes

While there are so many ways to succeed when using social media and Internet marketing, there are unfortunately just as many ways to make a mistake as so many big box companies have proven. To avoid these common social media mistakes, it is important to know what they are and then how to solve them in case you find yourself in the midst of one.
Public Company Crisis
Companies often find themselves with a crisis situation that involves their behavior whether online or otherwise. These get instantly picked up in the media – the kind of coverage you dread. However, if you have a social media crisis communication plan, you can leverage the power of social media to start containing the bad news and offer your own proactive messages that will start to take the air out of the bad publicity balloon. It will also illustrate that you understand how social media works.

Poor Online Presence
Those companies that have not signed on to the social media world are few and far between but actually quite common as they still believe they do not necessarily need to reach their customers this way. Big mistake! Fix this by getting in tune with the various channels, understanding why they work, and start using them in a clear and consistent manner.
Performance Failure
When a company starts to make mistakes with the quality of their products and the level of their customer service, there is nowhere to hide anymore because you will read about it in social media circles – from someone’s status update that spouts their bad experience to a horrible review on a site like Yelp. Bad performance travels fast now that consumers have the power. The best thing you can do is pay attention, address it by responding to the social media complaints, and then fix the product and service problems. After you have sorted out the problems and reached out to the unhappy customers, make sure your efforts are covered in the same social media circles.

Unresponsiveness
One of the biggest mistakes is to bury your head in the sand rather than responding to customers. When customers reach out and all they receive is silence, they go elsewhere. Make sure your company understands the importance of having a social media spokesperson that tracks dialogue, questions, and ideas from customers and then provides a quick response.

Embarrassing Social Behavior
While you may try to ensure your employees and staff understands the ramifications of representing themselves on social media and social networking sites, there are times when they still do things that are embarrassing and create a negative impact on the company. Or, it can be that what someone thinks is a funny, clever social media campaign actually offends its audience. Whatever the embarrassing social behavior, address it immediately, develop and execute a public policy, and learn from this mistake. Also, be sure to maintain some ownership and control over how the company is represented in the social media world before handing the reins over to someone else.

Deceitful Content
Customers are not dumb and, in the social media world, they can quickly figure out if someone is lying to them or being deceitful. There have been many examples of supposed customer-created content and videos that were all really slick, corporate-conceptualized marketing fodder. The best advice here is to remain authentic and honest in all marketing content, including product and service attributes. Carefully think through all campaigns and messages before releasing them into the judgmental world of social media.

Your Mistakes?
Do these sound familiar? Have you done something else that you regret? Tell us about it! We want to help you figure out the best solutions to your social media faux pas by providing expert advice and results-driven social media marketing strategies.