Social media mistakes!!

This week one of the things we talked about was timing for posts on both Facebook and Twitter and another thing was the use of hashtags. This made me think of what I see companies do wrong so often with social media, and it became what I decided to write about. One of my biggest pet peeves with companies or groups using social media is when they treat Facebook and Twitter the same, meaning the posts on both are the exact same. I decided to try and see what others thought of this and found an article from CIO.com called the 15 Big Social Media Mistakes Companies Make and How to Avoid Them. One point that this article brought up is that when companies post the same message to every media outlet they come across as "fake, impersonal, or spam-like." I could not agree more with that. I often find myself unfollowing, unliking, or blocking pages or groups that repeatedly do this even if I am interested in what they may be about. The way that they said to avoid seeming fake to the consumer is to make more of an effort to understand the differences in the social media platforms and learn how to more effectively reach people on the different sites. Also as far as the posting every hour the article says to look at when your target audience is on and start just posting during those times instead of multiple times per hour or every hour.

Now as far as hashtags... There is definitely a limit to how many you should use per post and what they should be. Before I go into what my personal thoughts are towards hashtags I want to talk about what the article says, which I love. They put it like this would you want to have as many people as possible find your tweet even if they are not the target audience for your brand or would you rather interact with the target consumers that are actually looking for your hashtag. I think this is a point that many companies miss when they are just looking for an increase in followers and not followers that actually care about the brand. Now when a company comes up with their own personalized hashtag and use it properly not only will potential customers find them but the company in turn will be able to interact with the customers. Also when using hashtags it is important to pay attention to the number used and why they are being used.
 

Here is what else they list as the fifteen mistakes:

1. Not having a social media policy
2. Treating all social media sites as if they are the same
3. Not making the most of your social media bio
4. Using social media as a megaphone
5. Focusing on the quantity of followers instead of quality
6. Over-posting and posting inappropriate content
7. Newsjacking
8. Not monitoring social media for suggestions, complaints, or questions regarding your business or products
9. Deleting or ignoring negative comments
10. Not responding quickly, especially to your complaints
11. Posting too infrequently
12. Sounding impersonal or automated
13. Sending automated direct messages (DM) to all of your new Twitter followers
14. Overusing hashtags
15. Not including a measurable call-to-action in social media posts

 If you want to read more about these check out the article!! http://www.cio.com/article/2381554/social-media/15-big-social-media-mistakes-companies-make-and-how-to-avoid-them.html