7 Mortal Social Media Sins

The essence of social media is knowing your audience and sharing content they’ll love. And the currency of social media isn't self-promotion, it's generosity.

There’s a lot of confusing advice out there with respect to using social media to grow your business and bottom line. But many who have been trying to make it work for years just aren’t feeling the love.

Practically speaking, the social media landscape is constantly changing, thus creating high overhead in training and productivity costs.

It’s also a platform you do not control. And it can be taken away from you without warning or compensation, regardless of how much time and money you’ve spent developing your social media channels, digital assets, and communities. This often results in a significant non-recoverable loss, both financially and with respect to goodwill.

And, as you’ve likely experienced, many people are using social media inappropriately or ineffectively (sometimes both). In reality, excellence is the ultimate scarcity and the market for it is infinite. Unfortunately, social media platforms amplify and magnify the high volume of mediocrity released online every hour of every day thereby making it more difficult to be seen, heard and found.

Frankly, the numbers don’t tell a compelling story for getting overly involved with social media unless you are doing so strategically and have laid an appropriate foundation first. This applies even to those who have tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars available to risk on advertising and audience buying.

Unfortunately, many people losing the money they’ve invested in social media advertising and channel development prematurely, simply can’t afford it.

Should You Be Using Social Media?

Yes, there is a place in your marketing mix for social media. But don’t buy into the hype promoting it drives huge amounts of traffic to your website that easily converts to sales.

Social media can (and should) be used to help you increase visibility, grow your professional reputation by establishing authority and credibility, and to build productive relationships with others.

But, it can’t be the only way in which you accomplish these critical business and marketing objectives for the reasons stated previously. That would be foolish and short-sighted.

Like all business tools, you must learn how to use social media strategically and effectively. It’s not a magical panacea for all that ails your business. And, used improperly, it can be harmful in ways you cannot imagine and/or may not be able to recover from.

Keep your use of social media in perspective. Stay on top of changes to ensure you’re using it well and wisely. And treat it as you would any other investment in your business—by measuring its true cost and comparing that to your results to evaluate your return on investment in it.

7 Mortal Sins to Avoid Making in Social Media

Take a minute and do a quick review of your own social media activities to see if you need to make any adjustments in how you’ve been using it in your business.

Here’s a short list of obsolete social media tactics you might be wasting your time on.

1. Posting whenever you’re free, bored or feel like it.
2. Selling directly to the audience in every post.
3. Trying to game your follower count to satisfy your ego.
4. Linking directly to someone else’s website.
5. Sharing without optimizing content for search.
6. Being self-promotional in every post you do in other people's social channels.
7. Adding one too many social sharing buttons to your website.

Making conscious, well-informed strategic decisions with respect to marketing your business in social media means you’ll be far more likely to be rewarded with success in meeting your objectives. And, if you’re not working toward that in the time you spend on social media, what are you working for?

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Linda M. Lopeke, Founder of SMARTSTART, helps entrepreneurs, experts and professional services providers rise above the noise, make competition irrelevant and join the 1% who succeed in business online.

She also leads a $50M philanthropy program that helps digital business owners build their dream with access to world-class expert professional guidance made possible through corporate sponsorship. Learn more about this innovative program and apply here.