16 don'ts of social media. What you're doing is tacky and wrong. By Jennifer K. Riggins http://ebranding.ninja

1. The 16 Don’ts of Social
Media

2. “Social Media is like teen sex.
Everyone wants to do it.
No one knows how.
When it's finally done, there is surprise it’s not better.”
-Avinash Kaushik, Google’s Analytics Evangelist

3. So stop screaming!
Here are 16 things you should never do…

4. #1: Don’t forget to tweet regularly.
Especially if you are B2B. And follow your clients and
potential clients. They care.

5. #2: Don’t forget to maintain a Facebook page.
Especially if you are B2C. If you are selling directly to a
customer, you must have a presence on the #1 social
network.

6. #3: Don’t ignore GooglePLUS.
It may seem just like something extra to do, but a “+1” is
literally a bump in your Google ranking. It’s actually, for
this reason, the most powerful social network.

7. #4: Don’t social media vomit.
First, over-saturating your posts will be more likely to get
unfollowed. And it’s best to scatter posts at peak times. Of course
you don’t have time to remember to post at certain hours.
Try a social media tool like HootSuite that will schedule everything
at those peak times. (Except there still isn’t automation help for
Pinterest.)

8. HootSuite organizes your
Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn
And it even lets you keep dibs
on what your competition is up
to.

9. #5: Don’t neglect follow-up.
You probably know already that asking questions is a great way to
interact with your community. But you gotta respond to those
responses.
Social Media Managers like HootSuite allow you to keep your
Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn mentions all in one place and
know exactly when someone posts.

10. #6: Don’t delete negative comments.
As long as they aren’t profane, deleting a bad review
or comment will:
A. Make you seem suspicious
B. Tick the hater off into just posting more.
(Plus you can’t delete someone else’s Tweet anyway.
If it’s egregious, you can flag it.)

11. #7: Don’t ignore negative comments.
Respond to them publicly. Then, try to fix the
situation. And go out of your way to contact
that individual to help fix the solution
personally. Usually they’ll feel compelled to
remove that comment themselves.

12. #8: Don’t thank for following.
It’s a strange activity. You would never think of publicly
thanking a friend on Facebook or a connection on
LinkedIn for accepting you, would you?

13. #9: Don’t thank for retweeting.
That makes it about you. To thank them, go ahead and
RT some of their content that is relevant to your
followers.

14. #10: Don’t auto-tweet responses.
Whether it’s direct message or tweets -- more often than
not that dang thanking for following or asking for a favor -
- it’s insincere. It’s actually bordering on ruder than not
interacting at all.

15. #11: Don’t make an ask on first connection.
Technology may make us more separated, less sincere,
but there’s still a requirement to build a relationship. Like
any other type of sales, don’t offer a call to action until
you’ve learned more about the client and personalize it
to them.

16. #12: Don’t copy-paste responses.
Everything you do in social media is public. Boilerplate
sometimes works in private email responses, but you
can’t have a twitter stream or a newsfeed filled with the
same B.S.

17. #13: Don’t forget to favorite.
Not really sure why, but people really like to have their
stuff starred “favorite.” It’s totally OK to RT and favorite
your mentions. Just favorite other stuff too.

18. #14: Don’t forget to promote old content.
You work hard to create good content on your blog, to
build stats about your company, to share great tips. Don’t
forget to schedule to re-promote this good stuff. It gives
you credibility and boosts your SEO.

19. #15: Don’t take yourself so seriously!
You are more likely to gain followers by sometimes being
funny. After all, it’s not just media, it’s social.

20. #16: Don’t make it all about you!
Yes, social media is a fast, free and easy way to market your brand,
but it’s also works on reciprocation. Schedule not only old posts and
new and great news about your brand, but make sure at least half of
what you post (especially on Twitter) should be by others, people
interesting to your audience and, especially, your current clients.
Show you are loyal.

21. These “16 Social Media Don’ts” were originally posted
on
SocialMediaToday