6 Things NOT To Do On Social Media, So Your Followers Won't Hate You:

Nowadays, every brand should be present on one or several social media channels. However, not every brand has a healthy social media presence. In fact, most of them have no idea what they are doing. It is a shame that some marketers are wasting the great potential of social media, by doing things that annoy followers, rather than engage them. Here is a list of social media „dont's”, so you won't become one of those bad marketers.

Don't mass tag random peopleIt is a way to make sure your follower sees your post, by having a tag notification pop up. However, it is an annoying inconvenience and will likely make that person hate your brand and less so care about what you have to say. Besides, people often get tagged to malware links and virus posts, hence they may simply associate your brand with malignant practices.

Don't post only sale pitchesOK, you want to make sales. Yes, it is perfectly normal for a brand to want that. But people on social media just don't care about what you want. They are spending their time on social media to have fun, learn something new, or get inspired. If your post doesn't fulfill one of these needs, then it will hardly be engaging. Sure, you may post about your Black Friday Discounts or Christmas Specials, but usually people don't want to see sale pitches.

Don't overpostWhen saying „overpost”, we think about those pages that write about a dozen updates per day. Those that seem to flood your feed so bad, that you are forced to unfollow or unsubscribe from them. See the result? Too much posting means that people will get fed up and simply ignore your brand altogether. There is no perfect number of posts per day, but there are some general recommendations for minimum and maximum: at least an update the every other couple of days (to keep people aware of your brand) and at most three per day. Exceptions could be made for some niches, such as news pages, which rely on timely updates.

Don't spam your followers or friends with page invites

You just started a new brand page and are so excited to show everybody how awesome it is and what great info you will provide. So you send a mass page invite to everybody. And from the 800 friends you have, you get a massive response of....14 likes. Again, it may seem harsh, but people don't care about your brand. At least not from the start. And it is annoying to see those invitations always popping up. It is better to first segment your list of friends and think about who would actually be interested in your page. Then send them a customized, unique message and ask them to take a look and like it only if they do. It may seem tedious to do, but quality always beats quantity.

Don't post robotic holiday postsDo an exercise: on a holiday (Thanksgiving, Christmas etc) visit the pages that you follow. Most likely, you shall see some sort of holiday message. However, most of them feel bland and without any humanity. They have been written only to appear. Next time when you want to write a holiday update, think if you truly feel like it. If you can't channel that positive holiday vibe onto your followers, then it's better to just not post at all. No one will notice if you don't. But some will notice if you post and it seems you did it only because you had to.

Don't post personal opinionsA.I. Is catching up fast, but for now social media accounts are still managed by people. And people have emotions and personal opinions regarding almost any topic. However, when following a brand you don't think of it as a person, rather as the whole company. If you use you brand page to post a personal opinion on a sensible topic (or any topic for that matter!) you risk antagonizing a large chunk of your follower base and ruining your brand's reputation. Use your personal account for personal business.

These are some of the biggest mistakes that social media marketers are doing over and over again. By avoiding them, you already removed some of the biggest threats to your reputation and follower engagement. Do you know any other bad practices that you should avoid in social media marketing? Feel free to let us know and share this article if you think someone may find it useful too!