Get it right and social media can be a massive asset for your business, but get it wrong, and disaster could be just one tweet away. Social media is one of those things that so many businesses either nail and perfect over time, or get it so wrong that they just turn their backs on it forever more, as if you really do get it wrong, the implications can be huge.

To help you get it right, we take a look at the mistakes that if you end up making, could really impact and harm your business, pushing customers away and basically making your company the laughing stock of your industry.

Gaps In Updates

So, you post one update every day for a week, then get bored or busy, and reduce this down to one a week, then get fed up with Twitter and just go ad hoc. This happens, it happens a lot, and makes your business look like it has no time to invest in social, or simply does not care, and your audience that does love social networks will immediately be put off by this. You don’t have to post every day, but you do have to be consistent and avoid large gaps, so make sure you have a social media plan that you do your best to stick to or others can pick up if you get ill or very busy, as large gaps between updates really do look poor from your business’s point of view.

Personal Opinions In A Business Environment

Whether you agree with President Trump ruling the world or the UK leaving Europe, in the grand scheme of things, you must be really, really careful regarding what you plan to say on this. For example, if you decided to come out Pro Europe, then you might end up alienating the 52% of people who are not that interested or in favour, which means yes, you might gain some new likes, but you could end up doing a lot of long term damage. In general, keep your personal opinions, just that, personal, and treat your business social media accounts as business only, non-opinionated platforms. Whilst I am not saying take your personality away from your updates, just be wary that voicing opinions is sometimes not the best thing to do from a business account, as you could end up causing controversy and losing customers.

Grammar And Spelling

From your website homepage through to your last tweet, your spelling and grammar are a reflection on your business. If customers see lots off errors, typos and badly used grammar, this reflects on your business, your service and your quality assurance, as they will assume that if you cannot be bothered to proofread your updates, then, you might just be as slapdash with the products or services that you offer. This means that typos and the wrong words becomes something that are not only embarrassing, but potentially financially costing as well.

Just Got The Timing Wrong

When there is a major event, or something related to your business that happens in the world, it can be a good idea to release a few updates that focus on this. But, your timing has to be perfect and you really have to sum up the mood that this event has caused, otherwise you could end up with huge egg on your face. Timing with these kind of updates is crucial, as you do not want to be massively late to the party, yet you also do not want to focus on just the one thing and seem biased, one way or the other. This means that it can be easy to release an update that just massively misses the mark from a timing point of view, and this just makes your company look lazy, something that simply must be avoided.

Automated Spam

Automated or scheduled posts are OK if you put the same amount of thought into them as you would a normal post or company update. Just chucking 30 updates out there, most of which are repeated or just thin on the ground is pointless, and this in the end will decrease your audience, not improve it. If you are going to schedule your posts or semi-automate the process, then treat them with care, look to avoid patterns of types of updates and above all, keep an eye on the updates to make sure they are being released as you planned them to, as checking in once a month is going to be too late if something were to go wrong.

And Remember … It Never Dies

And, as so many people, celebrities and businesses have found to their detriment, your social media updates may never die, even if you delete them once you realise you have made a major mistake. The reason? Other social media users of course, and the media, and pretty much everyone online who loves to take screenshots of or shares your error. When things go wrong, you simply cannot hit the delete button, as the damage will already be done and the consequences starting to come through, and whilst you might think you can delete and everything will be ok, it won’t be, it really won’t be. So always remember that what you post on Facebook or tweet on Twitter could be around forever, and with everything you do, always have that at the back of your mind.