Some social media disasters you need to avoid at all costs

Social media can be a huge boost to a company or a brand with regard to awareness. Awareness, when done properly can drive traffic to your site. However, it has become more and more apparent that most brands and companies just don’t seem to have any sort of coherent plan for taking advantage of the exposure social media can offer.

• Perhaps the biggest mistake and disaster is for a company to have no plan at all. Most don’t Often, a company will put some young intern in charge of their social media because they figure since the intern has a Facebook page, they know all about social media. You need a plan in place. You need a marketing team. You need to know who your customers are and where they are.
• Another disaster waiting to happen is for a company not to have any protocols in place with regard to how they want their people to act, and interact, at social media sites. Because of this, hashtags turn up everywhere and may not even have anything to do with you or your product or service. Find out where all of these hashtags are going. You may be surprised where some of them lead.
• The worst thing you can do, that pretty much most companies are doing, is to ignore or blow off negative comments and criticism. Research has demonstrated time and again that people have the expectation of being personally contacted by the company with an hour or so. If you fail to respond to them and make it right somehow, you will lose their business and they make take many more with them. The old celebrity adage that there is no such thing as bad publicity may be true in Hollywood but not in the real world.
• We live in an age where most people speak any old way they want and cannot spell to save their lives. You cannot do that out in social media world. It makes your company look like some minor league operation being run out of someone’s basement. Pay attention to spelling and grammar. You certainly do not want to look amateurish in any way.
• Engage your audience. Have a conversation with them. Don’t look like you are teaching a class. Get to them and allow them to know you. In addition, many companies do not have regular postings. Posting on a regular basis lets everyone know that you are serious and in the game. Scattered postings will not bring them back for more.