Thursday, July 01, 2010

How Your Business Can Avoid Common Social Networking Mistakes


Posted by Amanda Walsh

Just because your business or organization has a Facebook or Twitter account does not mean you are reaching the audience you want. Steve Overly’s “Social networking sites: 10 mistakes organizations make” featured on Washingtonpost.com this week offers some great tips on this topic. Here are a few takeaways I wanted to share with our readers:

*Instead of trying to tackle a dozen social media networks at once, identify those key sites that will reach your target audience and focus on those first.

*Consider organizational needs. Is the goal of social media engagement to network with others or to market the brand? Overly illustrates his point by noting that a restaurant most likely uses social media to bring in new customers, whereas a government agency could be looking to find allies within the government.

*Place social media responsibility with an experienced and reliable member of staff. Management of social media networks should be assigned to someone who understands the medium, and is comfortable with putting a personal touch on outreach while staying on target with the brand messages.

*It is important to listen to, respond to and engage your audience. Social media is not just another platform to push information on followers. It should be a conversation. Overwhelming followers with information is a sure way to lose them.

These are just a few tips to consider but to read all 10, check out the article on the washingtonpost.com website.

(photo credit: www.briansolis.com)

3 comments:

andrew said...

Nicely done. I especially like the tip suggesting people slow down and focus on doing one thing really well instead of trying to do everything at once. Eventually, you can get to it all, but to truly learn each skill/tool, you need to spend time absorbing and learning at a deeper level.

dominiq said...

Thanks for the post.

Focus is clearly critical and segmentation/targeting is also key.

Brands should really focus on the communities who matter for them and not by platform or media.

The communities of Moms, geeks, Personal injur lawyers, Twilights fans, whatever and focus focus.

Amanda W. said...

@Andrew & @dominiq, Thanks for your comments. It is easy to become overwhelmed by the many social media opportunities available, focus is definitely the key. It's easier said than done but in my opinion, focusing on one thing at a time is the key to mastering social media tools.