1. Social Media Mistakes Your Company Must Avoid
1. Leaving your profile incomplete
Signing up for an account is easy; completing it requires a little more thought. Leaving
your profile only partly filled out not only looks unprofessional, but it also forgoes the
chance to communicate a little more about who you are as a company.
Make sure yours is complete, and take advantage of options like your picture and
added links to give viewers a better feel for your company's personality.
2. Not having enough fresh content
You can't engage your followers if you let your account sit idle -- they'll probably
wonder why they bothered to follow you in the first place and soon delete you off
their lists.
On the flip side, how much updating can you get away with? In an article for OPEN
Forum, social media expert Guy Kawasaki responds with, "It depends on several
factors: How much do your followers love the company? How good are the deals that
you offer? How much 'real' content and 'interaction' do the company’s tweets
contain? For sure, the answer is not 'None.'"
3. Don't spam
On the other hand, bombarding your followers with automated or unwanted
messages will only serve to irritate them and can get you a reputation as a spammer.
Tools like Twitterfeed allow you to automatically send certain updates to your
account. Convenient, yes, but beware: if those are the only posts you have, your
account is going to feel impersonal, and it will completely negate the interactive
element of social media marketing, according to Rescue Marketing.
Similarly, never employ tactics such as hashtag spamming, which Jennifer Van Grove
of OPEN Forum defines as an instance "when a Twitterer appends a trending topic on
Twitter to their tweets simply to gain extra attention." Not cool, and a surefire way to
lose credibility.
4. Not separating your business and personal accounts
The last thing your clients need to hear about is your kid's soccer game or what you're
doing on a Saturday night.
You are allowed to have multiple accounts on each social media platform, so use that
privilege -- separate your personal account from your business account.
5. Letting politics and other personal opinions leak into your business accounts

2. Your business's Twitter stream is not an appropriate place for you to vent about your
stance on anything related to politics or other similarly personal subjects that have
the potential to offend.
If you wouldn't bring those topics up in a client meeting, the same standards apply for
social media sites.
6. Fake friending
Yes, you're excited about suddenly having free access to millions of potential
customers. But friending them all at once comes across as spammy and in-genuine --
descriptors that you do not want associated with your business.
Small Business Trends recommends going for quality over quantity: "Seek out the
people who will be most vocal about you. Then, go out of your way for them. Help
them. Connect with them. Build real relationships. That is how social media becomes
powerful. Fake friends aren’t going to click your links, they won’t visit your site, and
they won’t buy your products."
7. Being pushy
You should treat each new follower online as you would every potential client you
meet in person -- which means not pushing your product on them the instant you're
introduced.
"Direct marketing can work in social media, but you need to create the relationships
before you try and call on them," according to Small Business Trends.
Avoid the temptation to direct message someone and ask them to buy your product
the second they friend or follow you, and instead focus on building a relationship with
them first.
8. Not maintaining a consistent image across the board
Your social media accounts are now part of your larger brand identity, which means
they should reflect your brand consistently within the contexts of each social media
site.
The Small Business Advocate writes, "When all of your social media sites, as well as
your primary web site, have a similar look and feel, you put out a consistent brand
that prospects and clients remember."
Make sure the style of such elements as your background images, photos, and
language are consistent with your overall web strategy across the board.
9. Using the same strategy on every site
Every social media site is different, and each requires a different approach.

3. Small Business Trends advises, "Trying to run a one-size-fits-all approach will limit
your ability to be successful anywhere." Become familiar with the nuances of each
platform and take the time to employ the right strategy for each.
10. "Tweeting and deleting"
If you post something and regret it later, avoid the urge to delete it.
Since search engines maintain a record of your post the instant you put it up in the
online world, you can't ever really erase it. Attempting to do so may only call more
attention to your gaffe.
Instead, Van Grove advises to leave it, but follow it up with a comment clarifying what
you meant to say or correcting your mistake. In her article for OPEN Forum, she adds,
"Of course, the best defense is a good offense, so remember to take your emotion out
of the equation, and avoid tweeting about sensitive company information."
11. Failing to measure your impact
After spending all that time and effort on your social media marketing strategy, the
biggest mistake you could make would be to not measure its impact.
First, you need to decide exactly what you want to get out of your social media
efforts: "Increased buzz over a product? Better brand awareness? Blog subscribers?
Traffic?" suggests Small Business Trends.
Then, figure out how you plan to monitor it. Mashable has an excellent guide for
doing just that, including a selection of tools that measure different elements of social
media, from web traffic trackers to sentiment analysis applications.
12. "Too much time spent on self-promotion"
"One big mistake small business leaders make in social media is to spend a lot of time
trying to promote themselves. They also forget to keep an eye on their brand. [Social
media changes quickly] and small businesses need to watch their brands [all the time].
"We found during research for a client that there were a number of upset customers
posting on forums and social networks. None of these [complaints] had been looked
into. Something like that can be actioned very quickly and you can quickly change a
negative view into a positive one. Just think, "It can take 20 years to build a business
and watch it be destroyed in 20 minutes!"
13. "Having unrealistic expectations"
"Expecting social media to be the only way to get results and trying to do everything
themselves. This goes for other tools as well.

4. "In addition, having unrealistic expectations of what it can do."
- Yok SooHoo, Business Development at JRS Recovery
14. "Not making it relevant to me"
"I don't want to get ten tweets a day hearing about YOU. I want to hear things that
are valuable for me and my life ... and they need to be fast.
"And not too frequent: I don't want to incessantly hear about your business. It won't
make me think of you more, it'll just make me annoyed with you.
"So: short, sweet, pertinent, and valuable to me."
15. "Not responding to customers."
"Biggest mistakes:
1. Not listening to customers.
2. Not responding to customers, especially if there is a legitimate problem.
3. Stopped updating.
4. Using social profiles only for promotional purposes.
5. Poor branding / design"
- Aanarav Sareen, Executive Producer - Digital Media
16. "Not being consistent and not having a strategy"
"The biggest mistakes I see are consistency, failure to build relationships, design, lack
of strategy and not listening.
"Consistency - Many companies create profiles on social media networks and abandon
it. They either don't look to see if their audience is communicating on the network(s)
or they hop on the social media bandwagon and just don't get it.
"Failure to build relationships - So many companies hear of other companies making
money through social media and quickly try to sell, sell, sell. Social media doesn't
work like that. Sure, the majority of people that like your Facebook page and follow
you on Twitter are looking for a discount, but there are others who like to read what
you post and will respond in one way or another. The relationship you can build with
the connection or follower can be critical to your campaign's success.
"Design - There are so many generic Twitter profiles and Facebook pages. Brand your
Twitter profile and spice up your Facebook page with some FBML.
"Lack of Strategy - Businesses want to see what the social media hype is all about,
and, without knowing much about it, they launch big social media experiments. No

5. strategy is outlined, no plan of action takes place, they just do it. When there's no
strategy or thought put into it, failing is inevitable.
"Not listening - It's amazing how many people are unaware that others are talking
about their brand, product, or company online. Not listening or communicating with
the online community can open a company to a pretty sharp blow they never saw
coming."
- Geoff Taylor, Social Media Strategist l Social Media Marketing l Online Marketing
17. "Blurring the lines between personal and professional."
"They blur the line between personal and professional. IE - if you are using Facebook,
use it only for personal or business not both. Same applies to Twitter. I think LinkedIn
is ideal in that it is all business/professional."
- George F Franks III, Global Technology Executive, Management Consultant, Executive
Career Marketing Professional
18. "They talk too much and don't listen enough"
"They need to talk less and listen more. Social media is all about making connections
and, just like in the real (rather than virtual) world, people will be more drawn to you
if you actually listen to what they're saying than if you try to force your message upon
them."
- Jessica Routier, Head of social media and community relations at IAC-EZ
19. "Making assumptions"
"There is one word that sticks out in my head: ASSUMPTIONS.
"False assumptions most of the time are responsible for failure in social media and
marketing as they are in many other cases. A few assumptions you should highlight
and instruct your class to stay away from are:
1. Research and monitoring isn't necessary. (It is extremely important to understand
how your market is using the web, if at all.)
2. Social networks are the preferred way of initiating customer engagement. (Social
networks are a good way engaging your customer but may not be necessary for your
business, depending on your customers behavior.)
3. Measuring ROI isn't possible (Measuring social media ROI is possible. Here is a
really cool slide on measuring ROI in social media: http://bit.ly/x8YYc)
"There are many other assumptions, but hopefully these three help you get the point
across."

6. - Omar Ead, Digitus Marketing
20. "They create a business profile first and a personable profile later."
"They make their profiles appear as their company portals, trimmed with lot of
information sans value addition. It results in increasing bounce rates. Professional
visits the profile, but flip to another profile without scrolling down the entire profile.
You should create an interesting profile first, engage people, and then propagate your
message."
- Gerry Brown, Editor @Architectural Evangelist, BIM Consultant and IPD Consultant
21. "A serious underestimation of the amount of resources it takes"
"The number one mistake I've seen is a serious underestimation of the amount of
resources required to engage and maintain a social program."
- Marc Aniballi, Technology Literate Strategic Consultant
22. "Expecting social media to do all the work for them"
"Expecting Social Media to do all the work for them.
"You can't just blast the world with your ideas, products, and services, then sit back
and expect everyone to think you're so wonderful. That is unrealistic."
- Lisa Cash Hanson, CEO Blueberry Baboon, Author, Small Business Consulting,
Motivational Speaker
23. "Not engaging with their audience."
1. "Not engaging with their audience. You need to ask questions, share some humor,
provide motivational quotes and ask for their opinions about products or services in
your industry. I do a random, "fun question of the day" to get them involved.
2. Shamelessly posting only about their products or services. In social media and in
life it's "give to get". A great book to recommend for developing good Social Media
skills is "How to win friends and influence people" by Dale Carnegie.
3. Not providing helpful content. They need to provide content that truly "helps"
their audience. Satisfy the WIIFM by always being the place they can go to get
answers to their questions and find ways to solve their problems - become the expert
and gain their trust.
4. Not offering a free product or service. For fun I provide a free Social Media Score
so I can learn more about my potential customers skill level, build a relationship,
demonstrate my knowledge, while providing free valuable feedback to help their
business. It's a win-win as this builds trust, helps me learn more about my customers
needs, creates good word of mouth and offers me the potential to up-sell my
services."

7. - Michelle Hummel, CEO of WebMediaExpert.com, Social Media and Internet
Marketing Mentor
24. "Getting on social media just because 'everyone else is'"
"Very simple: the biggest mistake is Lack of a Plan. The biggest "what NOT to do" is to
go in bull-in-china-shop mode without knowing what you're there to do, what your
goal is, why you've selected the channel, etc.
"I see many businesses getting on social media because "everyone else is" or "we just
have to" but without clear purpose or a plan.
"One wouldn't open a new store, address a new market, or open a new sales region
without extensive planning, goals, organization and thought. And yet, many small
businesses (especially sole proprietors) just up and register for Twitter, etc. one night
and wade right in.
"Give it the same planning, investigation, research and forethought you give any other
new endeavor for your business, and you'll reap the commensurate rewards. Treat it
casually and you'll get "casual" results (or worse, reputational/brand damage)."
- Kristian Chronister, President at Jewelry.com
25. "Not understanding that it's all about relationship building and that it takes time"
"What I see so often is that a business decides to jump into social media because
they're afraid they might be left behind, but then they fail to put a well thought out
strategy in place. They end up throwing a bunch of profiles on the internet, trying to
market and sell to everyone, and basically failing.
"If a business would just understand that it is all in the relationship building and that it
takes time...
"You wouldn't suddenly decide that door-to-door sales was the latest approach and
go around knocking on people's doors...(at least I hope not)"
- Spencer Tyler, Co-Founder / Head of Production at CPofA
26. "Airing bad feelings"
"I think the biggest mistake is airing bad feelings / arguments over sites like Twitter.
Last month I watched a CEO debate rather childishly with a PR guy - going so far as to
use derogatory and inappropriate language."
- Pamela Hazelton, Ecommerce Shopability Consultant / Designer

8. Think you know what you’re doing every time you engage in social media? Neither do
I, and neither do the social media gurus I spoke to about their biggest social
networking blunders. In an effort to learn from others’ mistakes, here’s a list of some
all star errors in judgment from some social media all stars. I’ll lead off the order by
admitting an error of my own.
Respond to all negative comments – When I, David Spark,
started being seen publically in print, TV, radio, and online I read everyone’s
comments, but focused more intently on the negative ones. I wasted a lot of time
putting far too much effort into defending myself to these anonymous naysayers than
they put into attacking me. I soon understood that some geeks simply can’t help
themselves being negative. They’ve got an obnoxious strand of DNA and must
constantly try to prove themselves smarter than you.
Participate in flame wars to increase traffic – Similarly, Dana Gardner, blogger for
ZDNet, admits he would engage in online arguments just to watch his Web traffic
shoot up. But over time Gardner realized that flame wars don’t attract the right kind
of audience. “Going to the lowest emotional common denominator to me is an
ineffective way of reaching that audience. I’d rather come up with valuable insightful
fresh innovative content than appeal to angry white men sitting around computers
that don’t have anything else to do,” Gardner said.
Hire a voice talent for $2,000 to read a podcast for you – Paul Dunay, Global Director
of Integrated Marketing at BearingPoint and prominent blogger, made a massive
blunder when he decided to get into podcasting. His first show was actually a
whitepaper read by a voice talent for $2,000. The resulting podcast sounded like a
book on tape and he and his colleagues were horrified. That episode was never
published, but the voice talent did get paid.
Send a specially selected mass mailing to your friends – Susan Bratton, co-founder and
CEO of Personal Life Media, is still having a problem trying to scale individual
relationships with social media. Even when she pares down her mailing list of 8,000 to
a personally selected mailing of 250, she still gets nasty messages telling her to “take
me off this list.”
Assume that social media doesn’t exist until you arrive – Social media strategist Chris
Brogan and founder of PodCamp reached out to the New England podcasters’ bulletin
board and said he was going to invite all the social media rock stars to come to Boston
for Podcamp. Nobody responded to what he thought was a generous offer until he
saw a response on the board that said, “There are a lot of rock stars in Boston and it’s
kind of offensive you got to import them from other places.” Brogan learned from his
mistake. Wherever you go on the Web realize there’s been a history. Don’t assume
you know everything and discredit what’s been done before you arrived, Brogan said.

9. Post a comment on your own Facebook profile wall – David Meerman Scott, author
of The New Rules of Marketing and PR and the upcoming book World Wide Rave,
needed his teenage daughter to point out his massive social networking faux pas.
After setting up his Facebook profile, he showed it to his daughter to which she
responded, “You’re not supposed to write on your own wall. You’re such a dork, dad.”
Don’t engage with people who only want to push their own initiative – Ego and
personal agendas often take over many online communications, and Ross Mayfield,
founder of SocialText, used to ignore these self promoters. He doesn’t anymore
realizing that these self promoters are looking to create an association with you and
your business. “You really want to engage with every conversation that relates with
your brand,” Mayfield advised, “Even if you don’t want to necessarily draw attention
to the existence of a competitor.”
Over-architect a site with features and content without talking to your customers –
Deb Schultz, social media strategist for P&G, fell into the trap of making too many
assumptions about what an audience wanted and just started developing a site
loaded with features and functionality. It’s what happens when you work at a big
company and you don’t see outside of the four walls of the organization. Schultz
admitted she should have spent more time talking with customers instead of adding
more content to the site.
Be overly careful about everything you say online – Futurist Thornton May claims he
still falls into the trap of self-editorializing when writing online. Even though May
understands that what makes social media valuable is that it’s authentic, real, and
unfinished, he still is extremely careful about what he says and that takes the edge off
his online persona. He blames his age and says people of his generation are not
familiar nor necessarily comfortable engaging in online discussions.
Don’t come to your own defense when people bad mouth you online – It’s often a
good idea to have others defend you in a public debate. But Peter Hirshberg chairman
of Technorati and co-founder of The Conversation Group got into a situation where his
silence in a debate about a product release was just seen as rather peculiar and it
backfired on him.
Accept friend requests from people you barely know – Robin Wolaner, founder of the
40+ social networking site TBD.com, made the mistake of accepting friend requests
from people she barely knew. These non-friends on her network happened to be very
prolific posters and she couldn’t turn down their noise. Many social networks don’t
offer a setting that allows you to only get information from your close friends and not
from people you barely know. The only thing she could do was de-friend them, and as
a result some were insulted.

10. Stalk women on Facebook – Stewart Alsop, partner of Alsop Louie Partners, claims this
is not a mistake and he’s extremely proud of it. Of his 1200+ friends on Facebook,
Alsop claims he has about 400 attractive women as Facebook friends. In his mid-50s,
Alsop reaches out to young attractive women and asks if he can be their friend. Many
say yes. Alsop says he’s an old guy and it makes him feel as if he’s got something going
on. There’s no downside for Alsop. Some may think it’s weird, but it doesn’t change
anything for him.
Source:
http://www.businessinsider.com/social-media-mistakes-2010-2#learn-how-to-use-
social-media-for-other-things-too-12
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-15-most-detrimental-social-media-mistakes-
business-leaders-make-2011-3#want-more-twitter-advice-16
http://mashable.com/2008/10/21/social-media-guru-mistakes/