Hello Marvelos People!
Part two of the Do's and Don'ts of Social Media for small business owners. You can read the things you should be doing with your social media accounts here.
Vistage speaker Dave Nelsen says: This is not your father’s marketing.
Here are ten basic rules for what you should avoid in social media.
1. Don’t get started if you have significant product weaknesses or customer support issues. Engaging in social media makes good products more successful, and bad products… dead. But don’t delay for long; address the issues and then jump in.
2. Don’t use social media to overtly market or sell. Instead educate, enlighten, inform, and entertain your audience. In this way, you’ll position yourself and your company as an expert in your field and benefit from the “media halo.”
3. Don’t “set it and forget it.” This makes you look worse than not showing up at all. Once you get started, sustain your participation and interaction.
4. Don’t go negative. Emphasize your strengths and advantages rather than making claims about a competitor’s weakness.
5. Don’t mix personal and business accounts/personas, etc.
6. Don’t expect to fully control the conversation. Social media is not an advertisement, product brochure, newsletter, email blast, or one-way monologue; it’s a conversation. Conversations are bi-directional and can have rough edges. Even if you don’t want to participate, your customers and prospects are already
talking. Join them.
7. Don’t worry about some negativity for online users. Studies show that a little negativity increases credibility and empathy. Paraphrasing Abraham Lincoln: “You can’t please all of the people all of the time.” Be responsive to the negative.
8. Don’t feel the need to disclose everything. Not everyone who likes sausage wants to see exactly how it’s made. Be open and honest and use discretion.
9. Don’t be a generalist. With literally hundreds of millions of blogs, videos and podcasts to choose from, every individual can precisely tailor their consumption to their interests. Focus on one topic and do it well (the narrower the better).
10. Don’t overwhelm your followers with too much information, or too frequently. Everybody’s got a busy life and nobody enjoys getting “Twitter-ria”. Focus on the highest value information and content.
Vistage member and speaker, Dave Nelsen helps companies develop social media strategies to improve their marketing, sales, customer support, and even internal communication. He’s the Founder of podcasting pioneer TalkShoe and a long-time entrepreneur. You can contact Dave at dave@get121.biz.
