Social media sins businesses should avoid

Firas is a staff writer on Mike’s Life, and you can find out more about him here.

You might think I am crazy but yes, social media could kill your business or at least make you lose some opportunities. Social media is exactly the same as any other technology a business uses. If it is mis-used; it can backfire. I have to agree on the amazing effect and feedback that social media can  create for any business, but also a lot of businesses have faced big failures using social media and they can only blame themselves!

Here are my social media sins, and let me know if I’ve missed any:

1- Not to have a social media presence

We are now in 2010 and it is a must to have a presence in the sphere of social media and interact with your fans, customers and clients. Dell have already reported $2 Million in sales purely generated from Twitter in 2008!

2- Spending too much time on social media

Optimizing and analyzing your social media presence and campaigns is good! But spending too much time just passing the time of day with friends, isn’t. It might be a part of your job to monitor what people are saying and what is trending, and that’s fine. But the danger of spending a lot of time on social networks is that you can lose potential opportunities, or cause a lack of focus on the tasks you should be doing.

3- Ignore the feedback received through social media

The core and main reason behind any business being on social media is to add an extra feedback channel to the current ones.  Receiving feedback from your customers/clients through social media is the same as receiving feedback emails, actual letters or personal visits and they should be considered and dealt with professionally! Consider the difference between “Hear” and “Listen”, you shouldn't only hear what your customers are saying; you should listen to them, take action and interact.

4- Being lazy on social media

This sin might be related to the one before. It really gets on my nerves whenever I check a Twitter profile for a company and the last update is a month ago! You know what? If it's more than 24 hours, then there is a problem! You should be very active on social media. It is fast and up to date!

5- Forgetting you are representing your company not yourself

A point that a lot of digital marketing/social media people miss, is that the account or campaign handled is representing a company and it's not a personal thing. Whenever you represent a company on social media don't share personal stuff. Also, do not take any comment or feedback too personally and act to solve the issue instead of fighting with the submitter of the comment.

As well as being a staff writer on Mike’s Life, you find Firas at his own blog Steitblog and on Twitter @steityeh

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