"Coquitlam TMSI Office Training....Social Media Mix is a Recipe for Success!"

"Coquitlam TMSI Office Training....Social Media Mix is a Recipe for Success!"
10 things you should avoid when using Social Media

Millions of people are using Social Media and no matter what your intentions are (promote yourself, your brand or your business...) you cannot afford to not evaluate this trend!

This blog is designed to help you to avoid a few of the top mistakes people make when engaging in Social Media. Take some ideas, pass them on, and leave a comment. Whatever you decide to do with it I hope reading this will be well worth your time!
1. Not having a clue

If you do not have a clue (also known as a Social Media strategy or roadmap) you will get lost. You will become frustrated and you will likely have a hard time to define success. If nothing else sit down with your team before diving into the world of Social Media and figure out a) what tools do you want to focus on and why and b) what your measurables are going to be and how you can monitor them.

2. Spamming people through facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and other Social Networking tools
Whatever you do, do NOT spam people. People that constantly post about themselves are lame and will be asked to ‘move on'. It is nice to be able to introduce something special once in a while just don't overdo it!
3. Over automating your Social Media accounts or not automating them at all

Automation to a degree is fine and it can save you plenty of time and make your Social Media presence more consistent. If you know you are going to be away for the afternoon but you would like an update to appear on your profile go for it! Totally fine! However, drip feeding tweets and lining up quotes or jokes that end up being out of context is not really going to give you any credit.

4. Using Social Media because everybody else is
Embrace Social Media to a degree don't jump on every trend! Get involved with a few tools and exploit them to their full extend over time as your experience and presence in the world of Social Media grows. Do not just create a facebook group and a LinkedIn group as a nice to have or me too thing. It would be a way more favourable approach to actually focus on one of these tools that aligns with your target audience. Also take advantage of add-on tools like Tweetdeck for Twitter for example. You will be surprised how useful Twitter can actually be!
5. Commenting on your own blog articles with different identities
This is common practice especially at the beginning of a blogs life. It is also very tempting but it is better to be truthful and do your best to generate traffic to your blog. Or if that doesn't work: Think about if what you are posting is relevant enough to justify a blog...
6. Not managing your time commitment
Jumping into Social Media head over heel is not going to cost you an arm and a leg but what it will cost you is time. Lots of it! There is so much noise (distractions) and the Social Media landscape is constantly changing. Find someone with a good understanding of Social Media to help make your first steps more successful and less frustrating. Tip: Use a tool like egg timer (http://e.ggtimer.com/)
to manage the time you spend on Social Media tools.
7. Stealing content and/ or not passing on credit
Stealing sucks! Stealing means taking something without permission... To be straight here: sharing his highly encouraged and one of the basic principles of Social Media. But: give people some credit! Mention the author and source pass on that inbound link!
8. Getting spiders or robots to create inbound links for you
Yes, they are out there programs (so called spiders or robots) that promise to create inbound links for you which are a very important component of SEO! Don't use them. Google has gotten smarter and can actually distinguish between a quality and a spam inbound link! 10 good inbound links from pages with a good page rank are going to do you more good then 100 low graded inbound links. In fact the latter might actually harm your rankings!
9. Not letting go...
If you are a control freak Social Media is not for you. If you are constantly scared that someone may say something negative about your services or your company don't use Social Media! Social Media is all about dynamic content creation from multiple and often independent sources.
10. Being inconsistent across different profiles
Let's say you have gotten to a point where you have Twitter, LinkedIn and even facebook... Try to convey an at least similar message across the different media! Be consistent and do not risk your credibility by being all over the map. It is OK to promote different aspects of your business on different platforms according to your target market definition and where they hang out but it should be a company umbrella approach so that your social Media presence does not confuse prospective customers!
I could go on and on but this should do for now. Don't do these 10 things and you'll be better off. I guarantee it!

Tips from Business Phone Systems by TMSI 604 668 3200 Vancouver BC Serving commercial and residential real estate communications.     888-860-6431      www.tmsi.ca

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