Are you guilty of the 7 deadly sins of social media?

Are you an angel when it comes to using social media for your business? Or are you guilty of one or more of the social media seven deadly sins? They are:

1. Being absent – Having social media accounts with cobwebs growing on them is a real turn-off for potential customers. Here’s the rule of thumb for minimum postings – three Tweets a day, one Facebook post a day, three LinkedIn updates or posts a week, one Instagram post a day, two or three Pinterest posts a month. Use tools like Hootsuite to schedule posts. If you have little time, should you be outsourcing your social media?
2. Failing to use video and images – You want high levels of engagement – who doesn’t? So you should use video and still images. A video is shared 1200% more than posts which just contain text and a link. 92% of video viewers share them. Still images also boost your posts – they have an 82% engagement rate on Facebook, for example.
3. Failing to link to your blog or website – You undo all your good work if you don’t add a link. One of the main aims of posting content is to drive traffic to your website or blog.
4. Failing to use your social media analytics – Analytics like those on Twitter give you valuable information about who’s following you including what they’re interested in, the gender split, and how they access your posts. It should all be filtering into a profile of your ideal customers which you can use in your marketing.
5. Posting content which damages your brand – This is all about common sense. If you post inappropriate content for your brand, you’ll devalue it. This could be posting distasteful material or getting involved in controversy. Think before you hit publish.
6. Being inconsistent – Binge-posting, then ignoring your social media for days on end leaves people confused. Whatever you do, do it consistently.
7. Posting the same things on all social media – Content which is fine for Facebook is often not fine for LinkedIn – it could be a real turn-off for your professional contacts. Think about the audience.

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