Worst Practice: February 2017

Please stop doing these.  Asap.  Below I break down my three greatest social media pet peeves for February 2017.

1. Ignoring Scheduled Post Comments
So here lies one problem with automation.: automation.  While the idea of scheduling posts or tweets all hours of the day may be tempting, failure to respond to engagements with those posts is really, really bad news.  It fails to validate your user’s interest in your brand, harms your reputation, and makes you look just plain disinterested.  You don’t want to be the person at the cocktail party who walks up to a group and announces your new business opportunity and then walks away before people can ask questions, right?  So don’t do it on social, either.

Best practice alternative: Always remember to have a member of your social team on hand, monitoring your channels, whenever scheduled content is posted.

2.  Deleting Negative Comments and Reviews
A common mistake made by brands, particularly those in a service industry is the deleting of negative comments and reviews.  Nip this practice in the bud, immediately.  Feedback is feedback, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and it’s all comparably beneficial as any business moves to continually improve.  Deleting negative feedback on your brand doesn’t mean you’ve magically erased that feedback from the universe, it means you’re simply ignoring it.

Best practice alternative: Respond to it appropriately.  Use tact, grace, and and sincere appreciation for the feedback.  Watch for an upcoming blog post here detailing in depth advice on responding to negative feedback, but in the meantime, kindly smile, thank users for their feedback, posts, etc. and then use that feedback to better yourself as a brand.

3.  Using Inappropriate Humor
Humor is critical to any successful social presence.  Humor makes people laugh and laughter makes the world a better place.  However inappropriate humor can backfire, causing a wave of negative feelings that ultimately hurt your reputation.

Best practice alternative:  Know your voice, know your tone and stick to it.  Keep it simple and light.  Use tact and common sense and above all, if you question whether something is or is not funny, go with your gut and assume that it most likely will not be read the way you intended.