5 Social Media Red Flags

Social media: we always hear how it can boost our marketing efforts like crazy. Those likes, tweets and shares translate into powerful marketing tools and catapult our businesses beyond measure. If you do it correctly, these claims are absolutely true. But watch out for these social media pitfalls, which can stagnate and even flat-line your marketing efforts.

1. Sending Out Generic Posts and Emails

Image via Flickr by where are the jonses

Are you posting and emailing just do it? This isn’t going to garner you goodwill in social media, and will eventually backfire on your goal to development relationships and connections with those in your network. Save social media posts for truly significant news and events, and those that are relevant to your overall goals. Look for ways to tie into current events while staying inside your marketing purposes. Make posts and emails meaningful to the people reading.

2. Sending Out Much Too Frequent Posts and Emails

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Are you posting several times a day, or worse yet, emailing everyone on your list every day? All this does is cause people to overlook your messages and eventually opt out of receiving them. Think about it: do you pay any attention to all the billboards sitting beside the road you travel every day? You likely just pass by without a thought. Send emails and post when it makes sense and people will listen to your messages. When they see messages from you constantly, they tune them out.

3. Sounding Spammy

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It’s really easy to sound spammy, even when you’re tailoring messages to your target group carefully. Read the email subject line a few times before deciding on the right one. Does the message use hyperbole, exclamation points and overused phrases? These are an indication the reader will think, “spam” and hit delete before ever reading your message. Make messages personal and tailor them to look like useful information for the reader.

4. Not Following, Liking and Reposting for Others

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What many companies using social media fail to realize is the very essence of what makes social networking different from other forms of media. Social media is interactive. It allows readers, customers and interested parties to share and build a relationship with the company. To make social media effective in your marketing efforts, it’s important to like, follow and share what others have to say. Make social networking a two-way street among your business, other relevant organizations and the public.

5. Not Including Good Images

Image via Flickr by Temari 09

Today’s readers are visual creatures. Many messages only get clicked on because the photo was interesting. Use engaging visual aids to attract readers, then meet their expectations with well-written messages. It’s essential to have something visual to draw them in, and critical to offer them something worth their while when they get there. Make sure images are clear, emotionally and visually appealing and relevant to the content of the message.

The bottom line is, are your messages something worth reading? Are there too many of your messages for the average reader to keep up with? Is there a point of interest to draw readers in to begin with? Craft messages you’d want to read yourself, and you’ll see those like, retweet and share numbers soar.

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