Social (Media) Blunders

Over on Facebook, users get to "like" pages of companies, products, groups, bands, books, etc that they enjoy in real life. Which is all fine and dandy, except that, for quite a lot of these companies, etc, their posts come off as "spammy," and people start "hiding" the posts, or they skip over them. What's the point in doing social marketing if you're just going to annoy your readers into ignoring you?

So, how do you avoid coming off as "spammy"?

Well, for starters, don't post personal stuff. That means when someone ticks you off, don't post about it. Your social marketing should be professional. I remember when I was subscribed to the Facebook feed of a music publisher out of Texas. She had contacted me about licensing some of my songs, so I "liked" her page. For the next two months, I was subjected to 20 to 30 posts per day about her gripes with her ex, her problems at school, her issues with men in general, and her bragging constantly about how great she was... all the while, I was waiting for her to do something about my music she had asked to license. She rarely talked about music or her music publishing company except to complain about how the industry was unfair to her. It got annoying. I tired of reading about her personal issues and problems - laced with expletives for good measure - so I unsubscribed. (To this day, she has never contacted me about the music she was interested in.)

Secondly, don't overpost. While you want to keep your business and products on the minds of your followers and friends, there is a limit on how much people can take... and how much they're going to read. Usually, I recommend a MAXIMUM of 15 Facebook updates per day, but, usually, less. You want what you say to be deemed as "important," so posting random things 10 times per day while mixing in your "important" stuff - new products, links to news articles relevant to your business, new videos, etc - means that, more than likely, your "important" stuff is going to get "lost in the shuffle," so to speak, and you've lost an important marketing opportunity.

Thirdly, when you sit down at your computer to post updates and Tweets, start by making a list of all the things you want to post that day - doesn't need to be detailed; just a short list of what you want your customers to know about - and then organize them in order of importance. Delete or cross out anything that isn't particularly important, or save it for a slow news day.

Don't Update Bomb. You need to post updates and Tweets and other new content fairly consistently, every day, every other day, or at least 2 to 3 times per week. When you ignore your social networks and don't post anything for weeks or months, you end up DELUGING your audience with too much info all at once. When your audience doesn't hear from you for months and then you start posting ALL your updates in a few day span or over the course of week, people stop paying attention to you, like ignoring a shouting protester while waiting for the bus. It means that all your posting was, essentially, for nothing. but there's a solution: Create a schedule for posting and stick to it. It's perfectly okay to miss a few days in a row, but try to update at least once per week.

Unless your site is a humor blog or video channel, don't repost or "share" the randomly "funny" things that come across your feed. Your page is supposed to be professional, unless, like I said, humor is your focus and that's why your audience subscribed to you; for most businesses, that's NOT going to be the case.

In the next installment, we'll look at a social marketing posting schedule that WORKS.