The Quick Way to Fail at Social Media

What To Do If You Want to Bomb on Social Media

July 23^rd 2015 Sally Ormond how not to use Twitter, how to use twitter, Twitter, Twitter engagement

How to bomb on social media

There are times when I think it would be a good idea to needed a license to use social media.

Why?

Simply because there are so many people on there that really don’t have a clue.

Getting the etiquette right (this post focuses on Twitter) will have a huge impact on how you are regarded by other users.

What should you be doing?

Well, rather looking at it that way, I want to take a look at a few thing you shouldn’t be doing to help you along the right path.

1. How to use direct messages (DM)

Are you the kind of person that sends a DM as soon as someone new follows you?

I suppose your message is a “soft sell” for your products or services.

Don’t.

When you get a new follower, build a relationship with them.

Send a normal tweet to them, ask then how they are. Start a conversation and begin to build trust. Offer to help them with something free of charge if you like. Only once you have established a relationship with them can you start to DM with offers. Mind you, take care, if you cross the line between being helpful and spamming you’ll start to lose followers.

2. Do it yourself

When you start using Twitter there’s a temptation to automate your activities so you always have a presence without having to spend time actually on the platform.

Although it appear to be the ideal time saver, your activities will have limited effect.

Why?

There will be no engagement and over promotion of your business will look bad and turn followers off by the bucket load.

You don’t have to spend hours every day on Twitter; just pop in now and then to see what’s happening. Read some of your follower’s tweets and respond to them.

3. Thank you

If you’re putting out good stuff on social media you’ll start to get a lot of retweets and mentions. Whilst it’s nice to say thank you, if you go overboard it good look disingenuous.

4. Hashtag attack

The use of hashtags is a great way to get your stuff noticed by the right people, but over doing it a bit can get confusing. If you want to add them, just put in one or two.

5. Mind your mouth

Just as you would never trash your competition in your marketing materials, don’t do it in your tweets either. If you are the target of negative comments, rise above it. If you fight back you’ll just escalate things and get drawn into an ugly Twitter spat. Be the bigger person and let it go.

So how do you make a great impression?

Simple: