Working as a key partner in the largest social media marketing firm worldwide has its perks. People are lining up to do business with you, in large part because these platforms are so popular they feel the need to sign up with someone to help them take advantage of the trend. The understanding of the networks, and how to market their organizations on them is still developing, which leaves clients open to nearly any and all suggested courses of action. In all it’s a nice gig waking up everyday helping businesses get noticed on Facebook and Twitter. However, for all that is good in managing client social network accounts, from time to time a few bad things can happen to an account. Below are five typical instances where a company can do more harm than good when it comes to occupying the social network space. Ignore these commonly made mistakes at your own risk.

Polarize Your Audience

Here is an idea, we sell chocolates, so let’s talk about the Iraq war on Facebook. No, let’s not! Never get involved in war and politics as a business unless your business is in the war and politics arena. There are only customers to lose by writing statements that may or may not align with your customer’s beliefs on a given political subject. Steer clear of polarizing statements not only of the political genre, but those that deal with sexuality, religion, music, money, and nearly anything else someone can hold convictions about. If you sell chocolate, everything that comes from your Facebook and Twitter account should have something to do with chocolate, period.

Let Dust Collect

More than likely the biggest blunder an organization can make when it comes to managing their social networks is letting them sit idle. Remember, from a user experience standpoint, the people that are friends and fans of yours on Facebook and Twitter can only interact with you if you are actively making posts of interest to them, reading their posts, and generally being around. Leave social network town, and expect cobwebs to grow on your online marketing strategy.

Become Braggadocios

A certain family member continues to send detailed accounts of her overseas exploits at farfetched destinations, often involving great food, nice cars, and a beach front hotel room. These emails are deleted promptly, and often end up purposely hitting the digital trash can before they are ever read. If your company always makes updates about how much money it makes, or how luxurious its products are, it will turn off a major segment of your buyers. In the post-recessionary economy people buy quality, not luxury. Further, people enjoy reading about what they can relate to, and if you are constantly on an online tangent about the thread count of the sheets at your company retreat, you won’t win too many lifetime customers in the process.

Play Too Nice

Really, your company loves all the customers it deals with each day, even the ones that tell them to shove it where the sun doesn’t shine? Really?

Today, more than ever before, companies online are putting up an uber-friendly facade that often comes across as fake. While it is imperative to follow the above rules regarding bragging and polarizing your followers and fans, it is at the same time important to be authentic online. It is in fact, of the utmost importance to convey a real personality online.

A client of ours, name withheld for many reasons, asked us to create a twenty something energy drink guzzling South Park like persona to help market his digital storage platform. This was a genius idea that crystallized the concept of offering an authentic user experience on Facebook and Twitter. When a customer, visitor, or anyone else stumbles upon our client’s pages, by reading a single post they get a great idea of who they are dealing with. This persona is entertaining, intelligent, savvy, and most of all a unique brand ambassador. He’s not always nice, and he doesn’t always say the right things, but he is real, and this client earns new business from his online exploits. The same can’t be said for every company that acts like an online butler all day on Facebook and Twitter.

Be The Expert

We get it; you are in business because you know more than we do about whatever it is you sell. So get it out of the way, and then move on to a greater focus on what your customers want from you. People want to be heard on social networks, not lectured to about your expertise all the time. Credibility statements are great, Viagra Jelly but make sure to more than counterbalance them with genuine outreach to find out what it is the people on Facebook and Twitter really want from you.

So there you have it, five easy ways to become mediocre on social networks overnight, avoid them and flourish to new heights as a savvy online company.

Author Bio: Ray Subs is a publicity executive for SocialMediaManagementService.com For more information on how to sell more on social networks visit http://www.socialmediamanagementservice.com/

Category: Business/Advertising/Multimedia
Keywords: social media management, social media marketing, social media marketers, social media experts, social media consulting, social media consultants