Seven deadly sins in Social Media

A list of thing not to do in your social media marketing or more creatively titled the Seven Deadly Sins in Social Media.

1. Wrath: One thing that is innate to social media is the ability to swiftly review a restaurant, a product, a company, a musician, etc.  It’s one of the things we most love about it.  However, as a business page, this does open you up to be publicly admonished, but the worst thing you can do is delete it.  There are some exceptions: like if there is profanity, vulgarity or abusive language, but if there’s not and it’s an angry customer, don’t delete it, deal with it.  Comment back that you’re sorry about the experience, ask if there’s anything you can do, or explain the circumstances.  But one this is for sure, you can’t ignore it and you really shouldn’t delete it.  It’s an opportunity to show your customers you respect what they have to say, that you take criticism seriously and you take it well, and that you are forever trying to please them and be the best business you can be.

2. Greed: It’s all too easy to say: I want a lot of likes, fans or followers.  But is that really the most important thing? No. Don’t focus on numbers instead of engagement.  Social media is about interaction.  Posts and updates should be varied in content (See: Pride) and should always aim to engage the audience.  So what if you have thousands of followers and no one listening to a word you say… errr, reading a word you post.

3. Sloth: Back to wrath: it might happen.  And the more followers or fans you have, the more opinions come with them.  Addressing things quickly is the key.  Imagine a face-to-face conversation where you had to wait hours, or even days, for the other person to respond? I’d just get up and leave… how rude!  Right?  Social media is the same way.  Don’t be lazy and not monitor the conversation happening around your brand.  Answer questions quickly, respond back with haste, encourage engagement and let them know YOU as the company are listening.

4. Pride: Newsflash: just because someone follows you doesn’t mean you’re all they want to talk about.  Engaging your audience sometimes means appealing to their other interests.  Time & time again we see the most interaction on updates, tweets, or posts is NOT about the product or company, but about something else people can relate to.  National holidays, common interest, or funny stories can be big hits.  Analyze your insight or metrics and really tap into what goes over well with your audience.

5. Lust: Ok, so this is a stretch but just stay with us.  Just because it’s social media marketing, doesn’t mean you get to ignore a basic piece of marketing in general: it must be visually appealing.  Maybe not lustful but the point is, you’re social sites need to appropriately reflect what your company offers and who you are.  All backgrounds and pictures should be customized to reflect your business and should be updated to stay fresh and reflect what’s going within the business.

6. Envy: Something I hear all the time is: “But <insert company name here> Facebook page has twice as many fans as us.”  There is a lot to be learned from watching other social media strategies and seeing how they work or how they don’t work.  Take notes.  Some of the most popular ideas are inspired from other social media platforms.  However, you can’t compare always compare yourself to them number for number.

7. Gluttony: It’s generally defined as eating or drinking in excess, or greedy excessive indulgence.  In social media, we mean over indulging in posting or too much, too fast.  It’s also known as spam posting.  As a business you must be mindful of who you’re posting to and where.  There should be strategy, purpose and thought behind every update sent.   How would you like to open your Facebook page and have a business taking up the entire timeline with updates?  Facebook algorithms will usually see through this, condense the story, and hide the content for some users, is which case they aren’t seeing the posts anyways, but you get the point.  It’s either a waste of time or completely turns off a fan and prompts them to unfollow you.  There are no redeeming qualities here.  Again: have a schedule, have a plan and have defined purpose with each update or post.

What else would you add to the list of seven deadly sins in social media and check out our blog site for more tips, tricks, and pointers.