Social media is an evergrowing phenomenon that can make or break your brand. You may think that social media is an easy way to market, but businesses are held to higher standards. Come up with an effective social media strategy and avoid these common social media mistakes. 

Posting Only Promotions 

Social media is a great marketing tool but there is a line that can be crossed. Crossing that line means that you push so many promotions that people either get annoyed or overwhelmed every time they see your logo or post. It's necessary to promote your brand but you also need to post other topics that you and your followers are interested in. This will keep them engaged so when you do post a promotional topic, they will be intrigued to see more. Be creative with your posts. You do not always have to post right on topic. Finding creative ways to post exciting material while also staying true to your brand, will help your posts come out on top. Lastly, make your title a teaser. You don't always have to post all the information at once. Try giving them a teaser, like asking a question, that makes them want to click a link and read more. 

Ignoring Negative Feedback

The higher you climb up on the ladder, the more you will get positive but also negative feedback. Getting worked up about every comment that you may not want to hear isn't going to help your brand, especially if you retaliate. This will just make you seem childish and lose all credibility. But, dismissing these comments altogether isn't the right way to go either. Politely find a way to apologize to their comments showing that you are sophisticated and care about all the people who follow you. People expect businesses to be responsive to build trust with one another. People make mistakes and an effective brand should be seen as human rather than a corporate robot. A genuine response goes a long way. 

Spreading Yourself Too Thin 

You do not need to sign up for every social media site out there. With so many platforms, try starting off with one or two so you can effectively provide quality information. It's good to have a presence in more than one place but if you sign up for too many, it will look like you don't know what you're doing. Social media sites may be a way for you to post information that doesn't always have to sound like a business conference but it's also important to master what people are looking for, what they are interested in and how you can provide that to them. It will be almost impossible to master every site out there, rendering your posts useless and obnoxious. Would you purchase something from a company that’s projecting how inept they are? This type of activity does nothing to engender trust, which is the basis of any customer relationship. 

Paying For Followers 

This already sounds like a sell-out but let's continue. Ever heard of the saying, "quality over quantity," well that statement still stays true to this topic as well. The goal of gaining followers is to build a genuine following that appreciates you as much as you do them. Making yourself seem bigger than you are is just dishonest and unnecessary. Do you really want to risk your real followers finding out that you bought social media followers? What does this say about your honesty as a company? It damages your brand and negatively affects your bottom line. 

Using Hashtags Incorrectly

Hashtags can seem silly to some but it's a really great way to get your posts seen by a good amount of people. However, if used incorrectly, your brand will be tarnished or it will make you look like you're desperate for attention. Posting a non-stop amount of hashtags that have nothing to with your post is not going to get you anywhere and #can #make #you #look #incompetent. Also research what a hashtag means before just slapping it on to your post. For example, DiGiorno Pizza found this out the hard way when they used a popular hashtag, trying to say relevant, in one of their promotional tweets. However, that hashtag was used for women to open up about domestic violence. Check out the tweet below. 

 (Image found at: http://time.com/3308861/digiorno-social-media-pizza/)

After the embarrassing and insensitive tweet was published, it didn't take long for enraged people to backlash. DiGiorno issued several apologies to the people hurt by the unintentional post and said they didn't look up what the hashtag meant before they used it. Moral of the story, look before you tweet. 

Corporate social media is a world of it's own and if you want to stay relevant, then you must adapt. It can be fun, informative and difficult at times but an effective strategy will help you shine and avoid brand-killing mistakes.