Common mistakes Businesses make on Social Media
Social Media has given businesses in Australia and around the world new opportunities for connecting with its customers, clients and users. Unlike traditional media business need to take a different approach with communicating on Social Networking sites.
Here are some common mistakes business make when using Social Media platforms:
1. Non-personal
Hiding behind a corporate identity of logo is not going to invite social interaction. Many corporations now tag their tweets with the authors initials eg ^DC so people understand a ‘human’ wrote the tweet.
On your corporate blog have Gravatars with the authors picture to take personalision one step further.
2. No Passion
Social Media is all about passion. If you have outsourced your social media activities to an agency or junior employee – you may not be getting across the real message you want to convey.
Let your communications come from the heart and make sure the right people in your business are on social networks.
3. Implement a Social Media Policy
Make sure you have a Social Media Policy that all employees who will be using the social networks are familiar with. As part of your onboarding process make new employees sign the social media policy as part of their initial contracts.
You want to minimise any risks and often getting something in writing and signed does make people more wary about what they are posting.
4. Repeating Sales Pitch
If you are using social media just as another avenue to have a sales pitch this will be very transparent and potentially turn people off dealing with your company.
Social Media is about engaging, offer something for free to your users in the hope they will engaged with you and then once you have won them onside you can talk about any potential sales opportunities.
5. Corporate Red Tape and Micro-management
If you need 5 managers to approve a tweet, or new blog post before it can be published – you have internal barriers of communication with the social world. You need a simple and quick method that will allow your message to be broadcasted to your social networking followers.
