3 ways to ensure that your social media posts are not hurting your brands.
So you know that social media marketing (SMM) is one of the key ways to engage with your target audience. It takes your brand visibility to unprecedented levels and is an immensely dynamic way of connecting with your customers and attracting new ones.
So far so good. But have you stopped to consider that SMM could be a potent double edged sword. If it can spread all your awesomeness at lightning speeds; it can also shred your brand image to tatters, just as fast. Let’s try and avoid that by staying away from these social media faux pas:
#Too# Many# Hashtags
Hashtags are important, no two ways about it. It helps your tweets and posts come up in the results when someone searches for a specific hashtag. Twitter lets you use as many as thirty hashtags at a time! But just because you can, doesn’t mean you should. Too many hashtags break the flow of your message and are extremely annoying for the reader. And you definitely do not want to piss off anyone who visits your page. If they get annoyed, they will not come back.
Here’s some data if you are still unconvinced:
Source: Mashable
Higher the number of hashtags, lower the engagement with your customer.
What to do: At the most use two or three hashtags per post. Get creative with them but do not go overboard.
Pushing Your Product Too Hard
Your social media page is a virtual space where you and your customers get to know each other. You tell them what you, as a brand, stand for and try to understand what your customer likes or dislikes. You know the feeling when people post status updates that say how they are feeling sad or what they had for lunch. You do not care to know such details unless you are a part of that experience. Similarly, the customer would not care about your specific products and prices unless they know you as a brand.
What to do: So use SMM to build your brand and give your customers valuable information. If the customer likes your brand, your products will sell themselves.
Ignoring Negative Criticism
If a disgruntled consumer comes up to your office to inform you that she is displeased with some aspect of your firm, what do you do? You sit her down, listen to her problem, apologise and then try to solve it; right? Well, that is exactly what you do when faced with negative comments on social media. You do not ignore it and absolutely DO NOT delete it. This just angers your customer further. You also do not try to defend yourself, get into an argument with the customer on social media, and let all and sundry follow the gory details.
What to do: Apologise sincerely and then try to fix the issue.Period.
What you need to realize is that the virtual word has absolute freedom of speech and an infinite reach. So if your customer has a bad experience on your social media page, she will talk about it. And it will be “liked” and “reposted” and “retweeted” by her connections. Soon there will be others with similar bad experiences, who might start talking. All of this snowballs into one huge negative campaign that gains momentum, leaving your brand managers with a crisis on their hands.
So do yourself a favour and ensure that your SMM strategy is one that gives your customers a pleasant experience and makes them trust your brand. They will soon be coming back for more.
