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Filed under: Tip of the Day
From Counselor’s May 2011 issue article Social Outing:
 There are plenty of social marketing experts that have tips on how business owners can use social media to boost sales and visibility. Of course, there are also plenty of ways to go wrong with your online social networking efforts. Here are seven ways that businesses typically falter with social media, according to Susan Gunelius, CEO of KeySplash Creative Inc. and author of 30-Minute Social Media Marketing.
- Create a blog, Facebook page or Twitter handle – and never update it. “The biggest mistake is not being there at all, because that’s where your customers are, and you need to be there, too,” Gunelius says. “Don’t publish a blog post and then disappear. If your readers leave comments, you need to talk to them and cultivate those relationships.”
- Talk only about yourself. “The next biggest mistake is too much self-promotion,” she says. “It’s not about self-promotion; it’s about building relationships. Imagine you were in a room talking to someone, and all they did was talk about themselves. Use the 80/20 rule: Do 80% sharing useful content and engaging, and 20% self-promoting.”
- Be self-absorbed. “Another big mistake is basically thinking that it’s all about you,” she says. “Social media marketing is so much about building relationships. You need to give instead of receive. Share your followers’ content more than you share your own, and be accessible.”
- Never explore anyone else’s pages. “If you just build it, they won’t come,” she says. “You can’t just hang out on your own Facebook page or Twitter profile. You need to find your target audience across the social Web, as well. It can’t just happen on your site.”
- Bite off more than you can chew. “Don’t overwhelm yourself by saying, ‘I must be on the Web for two hours a day,’ because that’s not realistic. You’re not going to keep up with it,” she says. “Start small. You might find out you like it and just organically spend more time on there because you enjoy interacting with people.”
- Post way too often. “Anytime you saturate the market, people are going to start ignoring you,” she says. “Every single thing you’re Tweeting is not going to be amazing, useful and helpful. Excessive posts are going to be seen as clutter. It’s like being in a room with someone who won’t stop talking. You need to be human and personable, and not just always be promoting or publishing info related to your business, or you’ll sound like a marketing brochure.”
- Completely abandon traditional marketing. “Your online and offline efforts should feed off one another,” she says. “It doesn’t mean you should just give up traditional marketing entirely. You need to come up with an integrated plan to reach out to the most people.”
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