Sins of Social Media

Thou shalt not talk only about thyself. Thou shalt provide value for your fans. These are but two of the social media commandments, and, as you can imagine, there’s 8 more. We’ll walk you through the top “sins of social media” now. Use these commandments as a guide for your social strategy in the weeks and months ahead.

Sins of Social Media

1. Thou shalt be consistent in thy posting.

How do you make this happen? Create an editorial calendar – and stick with it! Your audience notices when you go AWOL for long stretches. Don’t do it.

2. Thou shalt not talk about thyself over and over and over and over…

We all have that one friend, the one who is nice enough, but it terribly selfish in the greatest sense of the word – only concerned with his or her self. Your followers won’t want to stick around on social media, either, if you talk on and on about your company.

3. Thou shalt provide value.

Referring to #2, there’s no reason you can’t talk about yourself and your blog posts and your products and your employees…but talking about them must provide value to your listeners. Every piece of content you produce should provide value, but especially when you’re talking about your own company.

4. Thou shalt not use jargon.

You want people to know what you’re talking about, don’t you?

5. Thou shalt ask questions.

Asking questions of your audience leads to the most illustrious form of social media: interaction! Give your followers and fans a chance to respond, and then you should respond again. Then, maybe they’ll respond again, to which you can respond…Notice a trend? Don’t let a conversation die out! Keep interacting. Do it in a timely manner, too. You know how people don’t like awkward silence in real life? Long silences don’t work very well on social, either.

6. Thou shalt not be overly familiar.

Because that’s awkward for everyone. Shoving your product in someone’s face, asking for personal information and getting too excited on the first interaction is like moving to second base on the date. Whoaaaaa. Slow down there, cowboy. 

7. Thou shalt use the 80/20 rule.

Post curated content 80% of the time (content that you didn’t create). Post your own content 20% of the time (blog posts, landing pages, service pages, etc.). Following this rule will help you not to break Rule #2.

8. Thou shalt be original. 

Let’s see some creativity on your social! It’s a breath of fresh air for your followers. They’ll appreciate it.

9. Thou shalt know they audience. 

Because in marketing, everything begins (and ends) by knowing one’s audience.

10. Thou shalt not forget to include social media in thy overall marketing strategy. 

Social media is one piece of the puzzle. The puzzle is your marketing strategy. All the other pieces of your marketing (email, PPC, blogging, etc.) tie in with social media. Don’t forget about marketing integration in your zeal for social media marketing or you’ll miss out on the full impact social can have on your marketing.