No one is really immune to the fickle nature of social media. Networks like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc, are forums for debates and discussions where people express their opinions more freely than they do in real life. While negative publicity can benefit your business if you play your cards right, it’s a risky gamble that you just shouldn’t indulge in. Social media is a double-edged sword and more often than not, it can turn on you. Here are some ways to avoid social media gaffes.
Check, and Check, and Check… and Check
This is the first and the most vital thing you must do before you publish anything on social media. In many cases, your message would be translated as you intended it to be translated but there are times when it can go drastically wrong. For example, there are some ads out there that capitalize on blondes are dumb stereotype. Now, most people, including some very intelligent blondes, might take it with good humour. However, there are several that might get offended by it.
You always need to check, specifically with others, that your content is inoffensive and meaningful. Share whatever you’re going to post with your employees, with your friends, and family first. When you’re sure they don’t find it offensive, you can show it to the rest of the world.
Stay Away from Blatant Promotion
To put it very bluntly, customers have a dislike for everything that smacks of promotion. That’s especially true on social media. Consider this; your prospects are already being bombarded with ads from all directions. They can’t surf the web without ads, they can watch a video without ads, and they can’t look at their content feeds without ads. The last thing they want is more promotion material. You’ll get further with your customer if you actually give your customers useful and relevant content. Give them something that would be useful to them.
Humour Might not Always Translate Well
When you’re being sarcastic, it’s your tone of voice and your expression that conveys your sarcasm. When you try to be sarcastic with the written word, it doesn’t always translate well. You need to either add expressions and emoticons to your text to show that you’re being sarcastic, or you need to be very blatant with what you say. It’s always advisable to be very clear and direct when you’re posting online, especially when the content is going to be connected to your business.
Assign Value To Your Post
As we implied before, your customers would only read your content if they’re truly interested in it. This means that you need to post something of value every time you’re active on social media. If your posts aren’t informative or entertaining, people aren’t doing to waste their time reading or seeing content that isn’t useful to them in any way. Make sure that your content on social media is relevant, interested, humorous, or informative.
If you follow these tips, you might be able to avoid most of the problems that mistakes on social media can cause.
