Social Media – How Things Can Go Wrong?

Social media has been the hottest arena of the web this year. What started out as simple networking platforms has now transformed into powerful marketing channels that offers businesses new and more effective ways to connect with their audiences and market their products and services. In fact, social media has redefined word-of-mouth marketing and empowered users with the ability to propel a good or bad consumer experience into the limelight and at the same time businesses get a chance to respond to the feedback instantaneously

With the recent addition of real time results in search engines like Google and Bing, businesses and brand get to have more extensive exposure in the market. As a buyer, you want to find information about potential businesses, all you need to do is a quick search on the web and you will get to know what their impression is on the web.

However, this may have potential ramifications as well. While businesses are increasingly adopting social media strategies to promote their businesses, many of them are unaware about the right techniques and end up making mistakes. Here are some of the most common mistakes made by companies that end up damaging their brand value:

Not Streamlining the Social Media Presence

One of the primary steps in social media optimization is establishing profiles on various platforms be it Linked In, Facebook, Twitter and so on. However, one of the common mistakes businesses make is they don't streamline these multiple accounts. Remember, your profile image, background and all other editable information should represent your business like your business website and logo does. This reinstates your brand across various platforms and audiences start recognizing you by your brand.

Blatant Self Promotion

Even though social media is a powerful marketing and promotional tool for businesses, blatant self-promotion seldom works here. Businesses, especially the ones who are just starting up with SMO often make the mistake of promoting themselves (and only themselves) and thus end up doing more harm than good. What works in social media is conversation and engagement through which you should seek to establish your reputation in the market. This is the only way to get noticed by potential audiences and have a strong following.

Issuing Automated Updates

This might be an easy way to update your various channels in one-single go but it speaks of your lack of involvement and you will have a hard time creating a strong audience base no matter how great your content is. This is because even if people are interested in your content, there would be no-one to discuss it out with.

Overload of Information

Even though one of the prime purposes of social media is to spread and share information, an overdose of anything is bad. Bombarding your audiences with an overload of information, be it Facebook updates or tweets on Twitter would irritate them and land you in their ignore list. Also be careful about what you post. Often people tend to share information on an impulse which they end up regretting later. When posting something on social media, think of the worst person in this world you can think of who can read that. It can be your boss, your clients or even your fiancée.