Social Media: What Not to Do

by Frankie Wallace, Guest Contributor

A quick internet search can give you all the information you need about how to build a successful social media campaign for your small business, franchise, or nonprofit. What you are less likely to find is what not to do to avoid public mistakes on social media platforms. There are a wide variety of social media faux pas you can easily commit if you are not aware of them. Heeding the following advice will ensure you keep the followers you have worked so hard to acquire:

---

---

Giving Everyone Access
First and foremost, do not give all of your employees access to your social media accounts. Having too many hands in the pot can create issues with posting frequency, maintaining a certain voice for your audience, and managing accounts. This is particularly important if you are marketing as a franchisee, as any public blunder could put the brand and your livelihood at risk.

Although it is easy enough to track who made changes to accounts or identify who posted it to each platform, it can become messy if inappropriate posts begin to make their way into the feed. Additionally, if you lose an employee, there would be little stopping them from spoiling your company name from behind the scenes by sabotaging your account through malicious posts. Keep a tight hold on access to prevent this from happening.

Copyright Infringement and Legalities
Developing your own unique and creative social media posts takes time and effort — as does finding suitable images to go along with them. As a small business, you may feel the desire to share successful posts of others on your own platforms. Beware, however: If you use copyrighted material in your marketing, you could be held liable for copyright infringement and be taken to court.

Another way to possibly find yourself in a legal bind is if you speak negatively about another company or person on a public forum. In the past, mudslinging was a means of negatively portraying your competitors in order to better your own image. These days, defamation is illegal.  Keep it clean on across all of your social media platforms and be sure to give credit where credit is due to keep your business out of trouble.

Not Following Guidelines
If you are posting on behalf of the business or organization that you work for, it is important to follow any guidelines that have been laid out in an employee manual or communications handbook. As with any communication, make sure that your posts are free of grammatical errors, have clear and efficient messaging, and have sufficient information. Practice sound judgment before scheduling or publishing any posts to ensure that your social media management is on point.

Some companies have very clear expectations of what they would and would not like to see on their social media channels and may differ from platform to platform. Franchises can be especially strict about this in order to maintain consistency across all locations and owners.

Some of the guidelines may include:

• Inclusion or prohibition of the use of certain hashtags
• Guidelines of what types of photos to use
• Image requirements, such as size specifications or royalty-free stock photos
• Time of day to post and frequency

Posting Too Frequently
Using the publishing and scheduling tools available allows you to adhere to a planned social media marketing schedule. It allows you to make sure you are posting regularly and providing a wide variety of content. If you are not using a scheduling tool, make sure that you are not posting too often.

Posting once or even twice a day is an acceptable amount of regular posting. However, there is a fine line — posting more than twice a day may cause you to lose followers. Think about your own social media use — how often in a day do you like to see posts from the same person or company? Successful brands tend to post once every three to four days with tailored posts directed to their audience.

Not Addressing Negative Feedback
Businesses tend to shy away from addressing any negative feedback. They may delete it from their page or simply offer a blanket apology. Instead, consider such feedback as opportunities to publicly show your customer service initiatives. How you address negative comments on any of your pages sends a message to your other customers that this is how they will also be treated.

Do not simply apologize or, worse, instigate an argument in the hopes it will alleviate the problem. Take the time to address the comment and initiate a conversation. Resolve the issue and leave the post up for others to see. Demonstrating your commitment to customer satisfaction may help the public to develop a more positive image of you as a result.

---