The worst social media mistakes businesses can make

Social media is at the forefront of most people’s daily routine. As soon as they wake up, more and more people are reaching for their smartphones before they do anything else. This relationship with social media sites makes it the perfect vehicle for companies looking to engage with their customers.

But without following best practices, your efforts in social media could be unproductive, or worse – a flippant or poorly-worded statement can damage your reputation, as many brands have learned.

Use (and Abuse) of Hashtags

The use of hashtags is the perfect way of keeping track of a certain post or picture. You can see who has looked at it and shared it. However, when adding a comment to someone else’s hashtag, it is important to do some research and check what it means before you decide to make a reply.

You also don’t want to seem overly promotional; so, if you want to reply to a hashtag, try to make it relevant. Likewise, you don’t want to include hashtags for the sake of hashtags as they exists just as much for consumers of our content as they do for us. Any obvious attempt to abuse and overuse them is likely to be ineffective at best.

Requests of the Internet Community

If you ask your followers to do something or comment on a post, make sure you think it through before you ask. The problem with social media is that there is often no editorial input like there is in printed news. That makes it easy to say or do something that may be misinterpreted.

If you are asking for people to post pictures, for example, consider all the different possibilities before you commit to the request. There will always be those who will try to be controversial or irritating, as the Natural Environment Research Council learned when they attempted to crowdsource the name of one of its polar research vessels, the RRS Sir David Attenborough. Had they followed through with the internet’s top pick, they might have christened the RRS Boaty McBoatface.

Concerns Over Images

If you are going to post a picture that you haven’t taken yourself, then you need to ensure that you know what the picture is and the context of the image. Companies in the past have made worrying mistakes after posting images of things that they had originally thought were harmless, either through honest ignorance or the lack of proper communications policies.

You must also be aware of any copyright infringement from using photos without permission.

Social Opportunism

There is always a lot of activity after a disaster or large act of violence. It usually takes the form or a big outpouring of sympathy and love. If you want to make a statement as a company, then that can be a positive thing to do.

However, make sure that you don’t use it to try and sell a product or service. It will seem callous and inappropriate to mention your company in such a way under those circumstances.

Keeping your social media accounts in order can take up a lot of time. You can place this aspect of your media campaign in the hands of a social media influencer such as Neoreach. They can target a demographic of your customer base without the risk of any mistakes.

As long as you are sensible, and think all the possible ramifications through before you post, then you should be able to have a positive experience with your followers and build a good reputation.