With social media channels ranging from Twitter to Google+, your presence through social media can be a major contributing factor to your company’s success or failure. By having a rich social community, you can build your brand and develop a sound reputation within your i
ndustry. However, by having a floundering social community, you can lose followers and business for your brand.
Looking for a surefire way to sabotage your social media efforts? Try any of the following tactics and watch your social media channels suffer:
- Blur the lines of your personal and professional accounts – While you probably already know this, combining your personal and professional social media efforts is the number one way to sabotage yourself. Always keep your personal life separate from your professional life.
- Misuse the available privacy settings – Having very strict privacy settings on your Facebook or Twitter account can actually prevent people from connecting with you. As a business, you should want people to find and connect with you. Don’t make this hard for your audience to do.
- Post too often or not enough – Avoid cluttering your followers Twitter or Facebook feeds with constant updates and information. Only post enough to keep your audience engaged, and to provide them with information relevant to your business.
- Create an inadequate company bio – On both Twitter and Facebook, you have the opportunity to offer users a quick glance at the highlights of your business. Your bio is your chance to put the spotlight on exactly what sets your company apart from others. Don’t miss out on this simple opportunity.
- Ask too much of your followers – While you want your followers to get engaged in your social media efforts, it’s not going to work in your favor to constantly ask them to share, tweet, like and comment on your blogs. You have to do your part to encourage participation by being active through your social media channels.
Don’t become a victim to these social media mistakes. It can be easy to find success through Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+. By actively engaging your audience and using the social media channels to promote the best aspects of your business, you can grow a faithful following of interested people.
Avoid sabotaging your social media efforts, find out how Fathom can help you grow your social media channels to their full potential.
Photo courtesy of Sean MacEntee on Flickr
I completely agree with two through five. I am slightly guilty of number two, as I tend to have my Facebook on lockdown rather than opening it up. Force of habit from college days.
But I have to disagree with the first point. By segmenting your professional and personal life, you’re sabotaging your own personal brand. You need personality and flavor, not solely professional postings.
The most influential people I follow on Twitter are those who weave their personal life in to their professional posts. It makes them relatable and gives them authenticity. Segmenting your professional and personal life de-humanizes the professional brand. I’m a big proponent of authenticity in social media and by segmenting the two you end up putting up a facade.
The key is to be judicious and not overshare.
Sidenote: I completely agree with you if you’re a customer service rep at a company (IE: someone at Dell or Time Warner Cable) whose purpose on SM is to help people. In that case, you definitely need to have segmentation.
I also disagree with Number 1, but I think it depends on your business, and the quality of your personal life.
I, along with many of my friends, are either pushing our personal writing or (for some friends) personally-owned businesses. It takes a lot of time to moderate one social media stream. Two would be pushing it. So we mingle judiciously. And none of us are exactly “living la vida loca”, either!
It mostly comes down to common sense.