The more I work with social media the more I see the divide between companies using social media well and those who tell me its not worth it or it doesn't work for them. for us social media aficionados, it is a sad but true fact, social media won't work for every company but I often see examples where it should and it hasn't. Here are what I see as the top 8 mistakes companies are making with Twitter.
1. Thinking if you are not on Twitter/Facebook/insert social media of choice here, people are not talking about you.
Guess what if you make something, provide a service or have clients they are probably talking about you, sometime, somewhere. Word of mouth, both positive and negative has been part of the marketing mix for a long long time.
You don't need to be active in a social media space for people to talk about you, the Twitterarti don't care if you dont have a Twitter profile, a hash tag will suffice if they have something to say. No Facebook profile, that is ok, if they like you they will make a fanpage, if you are unlucky enough to be disliked a spoof page will soon be created.
So lesson one, pretending social media doesn't exist will not stop people talking about you, so it is far better to have a profile in these places so you can participate in the conversation that is happening about you.
When people talk about you, even if it is negative they are doing you a favour by letting you know and giving you a chance to rectify it. If this same conversation happened at a BBQ, you would have no knowledge and no change to save a situation or put forward your perspective.
Number 2: Sign Up and Abandon
We have all seen it, a Twitter account with no avatar, no profile description with one or two hello world / testing tweets and then months of silence. Yep it looks pathetic, your failed experiment is out there for everyone to see. Even if you are just holding the Twitter handle or Facebook page until you get a strategy up and running, complete your profile with description and avatar and ensure you tell potential followers that the account is not active and point them to alternative points of contact, as this leads me to point three
Number 3. Giving your clients the cold shoulder.
Now you have a Twitter or Facebook account, you need to expect your customers and potential customerse will want to interact with you. Don't ignore them, the key to social media is the SOCIAL part.
If I have taken the time to tweet you to say something, or posted you a question I am expecting an answer. If I say I'm off to visit your shop, say great and ask me what I bought. If I say I'm loving a product ask for a photo and retweet.. If I can't figure out how to put slot A into Tab B, direct me to the how to on your website.
A conversation that only runs one way will not last so long, but interacting with clients takes a lot of time, dont fall into mistake number 4.
Number 4. Relying too heavily on automation.
Social media can be time consuming and there are some very clever tools around that can automate a number of functions for you, which saves a lot of time. I recommend everyone who is serious about social media invests in at least one of these apps.
They can be set to send out tweets across the day and night (handy if the people you are trying to reach live in a different time zone) but they are not the spontaneous "voice" that characterises twitter.
Automation will not build friendship, there is no substitute for scanning your twitter feed and answering questions or joining in a hash tag conversation, you can build clients or your repution as knowlegeable in the industry, so don't think just becuase you can automateTtwitter it is a set and forget proposition.
So slip in the occassional activty update, especially if it is relevant to the industry such a trade show, product launch.
Number 5. Believing it is a numbers game:
Do you want 50,000 spammy followers or 5,000 active listening and engaged followers? It is satisfying to watch your follower numbers steadily go up and great to report back to the board but unless they are spending money with you, actively telling other people about you, or supplying you with good, services or information they are a drain on your time and resources. Focus on the buyers and forget the window shoppers.
Number 6. Not spending time offline to tell people about your social media presence.
You see it all the time on brochures, shop windows, menus, receipts and for one reason, it works. Reach you customers when they are thinking about you. With smartphones customers can connect you on Facebook and Twitter immediately and encourage them to do so.
Number 7. Spamming
Don't, just Don't. Your tweet may only have a half life of five minutes but that doesn't mean you should retweet the same stuff every five minutes.
Be cautious when promoting third parties, esp through those share buttons on website, there is a fine line between sharing content you think your followers will be interested in and tweeting crap.
Number 8. Not taking it seriously
Here is a senario for you, your marketing department comes to you with the contact details of a client who is having a problem with your product or service. Do you
A. Ignore it, if it was a serious complaint they would contact the company directly
B. Promise to look into it and do so, eventually
C. Make it a priority to see if the clients problem can be resolved.
Unless you chose C, you could potentially run into trouble, Twitter (and Facebook) are rapidly becoming legitimate channels of contact for clients and that includes complaints and trouble shooting. Social Media users are social, so if you ignore them, they do a blog post, tweet about it, bitch about you on their Facebook status and there goes their business, any referrals and a negative post in your search engine results. Opps.
There are lots of other mistakes companies make when using Twitter, these are just the basics to get right but do so and you will be well on your way to a better execution of your social media strategy.
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