Tag: Online Communities

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Random Thoughts Tips and tricks

Common Social Media Mistakes Made by Businesses

Social Media Mistakes

social media mistakes

 

 

 

So, as a social media professional, one of the biggest mistakes I see small businesses making on their social media sites, is overselling.  This is  very common social media mistake, as businesses want to push their products, depict how great their prices are, and overall promote what they offer as an organization.  However, this is a big “no, no”, you want to come across as a human, not a sales robot!  In coming across as a pushy sales person on social media sites you will loose fans and overall interest.  Individuals join social networking sites, in general, to build and maintain relationships, connect with other like minded individuals, and in general be social.  The last thing your followers want is to feel like you are trying to force feed them a sales pitch.  So, it is all about balance.  As a business you should have two personailities when it comes to managing your social media sites.  Every business/organization should have a personal side and a business side when managing their social networking sites.  In order to avoid coming across too “salesy” be sure that you are posting like an individual would.  Meaning aim to create posts consisting of:

  • Quotes
  • Relevant information (articles, other sites, blogs, etc.)
  • Sharing information (connect with others through sharing relevant posts.
  • Images (these speak louder than words)
  • Open ended posts to get users involved.

Bottom line, every thing you post should not directly be about selling your business.

However, as I stated you should have a business side in managing your sites.  In having this side, you will keep in mind that even your personalized posts should directly relate to what you are trying to sell/promote.  For example, if I own an outdoor recreation business I want all of my content I posts to be related to outdoor recreation.  It simply would not make sense, and possibly confuse followers if I began to post content about beauty tips and tricks…So, keep it relevant and keep it personal!

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Tips and tricks

Posting Do’s and Don’ts

In working in the field that I do, it has occurred to me that numerous people, including myself are making the same social media mistakes over and over without even realizing it. So, today I have decide to compile a basic list of do’s and dont’s of social media usage. Here we go!
Do-Get on Social Media! If you are not already on social media sites, get on them, this is the way we are communicating! Start networking on Facebook, Linkedin, Twitter, pick your poison!

Don’t-Get on these sites without a goal in mind. Ask yourself, before getting on a social media site, what do I want this site to do for me?
What do I want to get out of this site? What to do I hope to gain from this site? Etc.

Do-Research! Figure out what social networking sites cater to needs. Meaning, after you establish your goals research the background of each site. You should be asking your site why does this site exist? Who does this site cater to? What will I gain from being on this site?

Don’t-Overjoin. What I mean here, is do not overwhelm yourself. Start by joining one or two networks and get a great foundation started and be active on these sites. Get your name out there! There is no point in joining 5-6 sites if you are not going to actively participant in them. In this case, keep with the mentality less is more.

Do-Be consistent! While this point is some what repeating my last don’t, I want to stress how important consistency is. There is no point in creating an account if you are never going to post or connect with other individuals. Take home message, be consistent, create a schedule and stick to it. Meaning, I like to stick with a Facebook schedule of posting once daily, Twitter posting three times daily (because this is a microblogging site and the newsfeed moves so fast), Blogging once daily, and posting on Pinterest 3 times a week (MWF).

Don’t-Overpost, if you are annoyingly posting it is likely other individuals will “unlike”/”unfollow” you. Moderation is the key! Stick to being consistent and develop your own social media schedule!

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Random Thoughts

Images as a Source of Nonverbal Cues

I must confess I am super annoyed with other bloggers, theorist, professionals and academics claiming that nonverbal cues are absent in computer-mediated communication, such as social networking sites.
While this may have been true 20 plus years ago when we were first learning to use the internet, this is no longer true! Social networking is packed with nonverbal cues, we just have to stop and notice them. While traditionally nonverbal communication may not pop out at us when communicating via a computer, nonverbal cues are there. When I say this we are constantly sending some sort of nonverbal messages online. For instance the images we choose to send to our friends can be seen as a form of a nonverbal cue, meaning we select these images for a purpose full of intention behind them much of the time without even realizing it. Next, time you select a picture to post, stop and think what message am I actually sending? Do I want others to see me as outgoing? Fun? Energetic? It is true, we can not not communicate, simplistically meaning, like it or not we are always communicating something!