How to ruin your social media marketing campaign

So you’re thinking about starting a Social Media Account for your business, or maybe you have one

already. Whatever your position, here is an easy step by step guide to ruining your social media

marketing campaign. I hope I don’t offend!

1) Completely ignore the people that interact with you, you know… your customers. If they tweet

about how great you are, don’t bother sharing what they have to say.

2) Never reply to a complaint. If you ignore it, then essentially it doesn’t exist… Right?

3) With regards to the last point, if someone does complain in a rude manner and you’re just so

angry that you can’t resist replying, be just as rude back. Swear at them if you like. “Brand

damaging”? …What’s that?

4) Get your brand on EVERY social media site. Every single one! Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin,

Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr, Vine, the lot. It’s the only plausible way to make sure

everyone sees your posts…

5) Post about any old thing, relevant or not. Your cat just died? Post about it. After all, Fluffy

deserves for the world to know how much you loved him.

6) Don’t ask for anyone else’s opinion for content. It’s YOUR social media feed, so why should

anyone else get a say?

7) Put any old display picture up. Low quality? Who cares? Nobody looks at them anyway.

8) Make sure you’re completely corporate, after all, you are running a business.

9) #Hashtag #Every #Single #Word #So #More #People #See #It

10) Post every single second of every single day. Your followers obviously only want to hear about

your brand, so they won’t mind a cluttered news feed.

11) If after a week on good ol’ Facebook, you haven’t seen a profit increase of 50%, give up. Delete

your Facebook, Twitter, Linkedin, Google+, Instagram, Pinterest, Tumblr and Vine accounts. Social

Media isn’t important anyway.

Now my sarcastic rant is over, I thought I’d give some advice regarding the points above.

1) Obviously, do not ignore the people that interact with you online. Reply, RT or whatever it is that’s

appropriate at the time. This will help avoid consumers feeling that your brand lacks interest in its

customers.

2) Do reply to complaints, in a polite and helpful way. Apologise for any mistakes on your brands

behalf and try to fix it in any way possible. Ignoring it means that anyone can see their comment and

you look as if you again, lack interest in your customers.

3) DO NOT be rude to customers. All it takes for your brands reputation to be ruined is word of

mouth, which can spread surprisingly quickly online. Oh, and don’t swear either, some people will

find it offensive.

4) It isn’t necessary to put your company on every social networking platform, only some will be

relevant to you and it will become impossible & unnecessary to keep up with every one. Stick to a

few, concentrate on them and it’ll be much easier to manage.

5) Make sure your content is relevant. You can wish your fans a Merry Christmas of course but try

not to steer too far away from your brand. For example, if you’re a fashion brand, talk about recent

outfits on celebrities that you like and post images. Encourage fans to send images of them in their

favourite outfits, or wearing something from your brand. Whatever you do, make sure you stay on

topic but don’t let it be all about you. People get bored easily. I know… consumers are so

temperamental.

6) Social Media Marketing takes time! Don’t give up on it. Customers nowadays expect you to have a

social feed, if you don’t it reflects badly on the brand making it seem outdated. Don’t expect

miracles from it, but trust me it works.

7) Pleeeeeaaaaaase don’t clog my feed up with your posts. If I follow you, I want to hear from you

but not every second of every day. It’s like a relationship, if you texted your partner every minute of

every day, they’d get bored of your clinginess and break it off. Don’t make your customers break up

with you, er… I mean unfollow you.

8) Everyone’s different, so everyone at your company will have different ideas on what should go

into your social feed. I’m not saying you should put all the things people suggest online, but you

should take their opinion into account. Not every one of your fans will have the same personality as

you, so a mix of content is good.

9) Make sure your display pictures are high quality, and quite frankly, attractive. Your picture is the

first impression you make on social media, so make sure it’s a good impression.

10) Do not be too corporate on social media. It’s social. People want to speak to other humans on

social media, they want friendly interaction. Not to talk to a businessman or a robot.

11) Let’s not hashtag every single word you put. It’s annoying, unnecessary and makes you look as if

you don’t know what you’re doing.