Here are 5 important social media “deadly” sins that are sure to get you unfriended and unfollowed. Knowing these sins and how to avoid them is essential for successful social networking.
1. Monopolizing Someone’s Facebook Wall
As we open the conversations on the seven deadly sins and virtues, memories of how eleven years ago I laid myself naked to the readers of my earlier blog. Throughout the month of May, we will be discussing the teachings promulgated by the Church in modern times and you are invited to reflect on how your life might have been affected by them. Avoid these three deadly content curation sins to get more social love. Failing to follow key influencers in your niche. Probably the single greatest way to find awesome, interesting, trending content to curate on your own blog or social page is by following the right people. Find out who these people are, and follow them.
Do you post photos of your child or pet on your friend’s walls all the time? Most likely other people don’t mind these kinds of posts, as long as there aren’t too many. And if you post something offensive, even if you think it is funny, on someone else’s wall, you might really irritate your friend. Why? Because everything that is posting on your friend’s wall is visible to others. When you monopolize another person’s wall, your friend’s own posts can get lost in the shuffle. Their wall is primarily for their news and thoughts. Posting sparingly and in good taste on your friend’s wall is etiquette that keep your friendship intact.
2. Serious Tweeting
Twitter is like a cocktail party where people get to know each other and keep things light. You have only 140 words to get your message across, so wordy deep thoughts don’t go over well. This isn’t the social network to tweet too seriously. You are likely to turn off your followers if you dwell on a topic or pontificate.
3. Being a hater
Another “serious” sin is being too negative when social networking. This means not blasting others with your opinions of others. Follow the motto “if you can’t say anything nice, don’t say anything at all.” “Hating” can also take the form of talking about controversial subjects. It is fine to get in discussions with people about issues like politics and religion, but you have to remember to stay respectful and walk away if it gets too heated. Avoid insulting others just to make your argument.
4. TMI
Sharing your every thought and action might be tempting when social networking. But there is something called too much information. Your friends or followers don’t need to know the details of your medical procedure or a blow-by-blow of your break-up. Whining about your life is a no-no and bound to turn someone off. When you consider what to share, think about what you would or wouldn’t say face to face. If you wouldn’t share the information offline, don’t say it online.
5. Taking things too personally
If you get in contentious discussions and don’t take the advice to walk away if it gets too heated, don’t take it personally if someone else crosses the line. It is easy to insult others or offend someone if you aren’t face to face. Sometimes it is just a perceived insult. The other person wasn’t trying to offend but for some reason it hurt your feelings or angered you. Don’t take it too seriously and put them on blast. Otherwise they might just unfriend you are unfollow you.
These are just some of the sins you should avoid in social networking. The best advice is the age old “golden rule,” to treat others how you want people to treat you.
If you enjoyed this post, you may also want to check out these others:
7 Steps to Help Your Business “Get Found” on the Web
How to Avoid Wasting Time with Facebook and E-mail
15 Website Mistakes You Should Avoid (Part 1)
How To Claim Your Google Local Business Listing
Tips for Working at Home (Part 1)
Are You Charging Enough for Your Services?
How to Make Social Media Marketing Work for Your Business
Is There Still Gold in Cold Calling
This article is published by Will Sherwood | The Sherwood Group |Website Design | Graphic Design | Marketing Communications:The Sherwood Group has over 30 years of experience working with all sorts of companies, small and large. Our clients range from entrepreneurs to Fortune 500 firms, in nearly every business sector, from across the street to around the world (and yes, even Europe, China, and South America). Our goal is to create advertising, graphic design, website design, and marketing communication that still looks fresh and relevant 10-15 years later. Our mission is to stir your imagination and leave your competition shaken and wondering, Now what do we do?” We are located in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
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Content marketing is a cost effective way to build your brand, develop a customer base and drive sales. Unfortunately, despite their best intentions, most marketers and content creators commit one or more sins.
3 Deadly Content Curation Sins To Avoid Boredom
Here are thirteen common content marketing sins and actionable content marketing advice to fix them. [INFOGRAPHIC]
3 Deadly Content Curation Sins To Avoid Plagiarism
- For the sin of stealing and promoting other people’s content as your own, you will document the content’s origin and make amends where appropriate (including public apologies and usage fees).
- For the sin of boring, lifeless content, thou shalt dress up your content with attention getting eye candy including images and videos.
- For the sin of blocks of text that causes readers’ eyes to glaze over, thou shalt make your content easy-to-consume with visually attractive formatting. This includes the use of color, bolding and bullet points to guide readers through your content
- For the sin of confusing corporate-speak that obfuscates communications, thou shalt use customer-friendly language.
- For the sin of not integrating your brand into newer content formats, thou shalt extend your 360° brand in a way that it’s recognizable.
- For the sin of not optimizing your content (including images and videos) for search, thou shalt focus each piece of content on a keyword phrase. Further, you will include relevant links (both internal and external), use English words in your post URLs, and add text to your non-text content.
- For the sin of only creating content when you have time so that it appears as if no one’s home, thou shalt create an editorial calendar and publish regularly.
- For the sin of ending your content before it sells your offering, thou shalt ensure that each element of content contains a contextually appropriate call-to-action.
- For the sin of typos and poor grammar that cause potential readers to leave without reading, thou shalt have a professional copy editor to correct these careless errors.
- For the sin of not extending each content marketing project, thou shalt assess how to maximize your content marketing efforts across different platforms in different unique ways. (Here are 56 ways to recycle your content marketing and 15 Ways to Use Blog Posts To Create Content Marketing.)
- For the sin of not socializing your content, thou shalt wear social media jewelry in the form of social sharing.
- For the sin of not promoting your content, thou shalt share your content across your owned and social media entities. Where appropriate, you shall integrate content promotion into other communications such as customer service and billing emails.
- For the sin of not tracking your content marketing efforts, thou shalt determine relevant metrics based on your goals and include promotion codes to measure results.
To avoid these thirteen content marketing sins, you must have a solid content marketing plan that’s consistently implemented. Of course, this can’t happen without sufficient resources, both human and financial.
What content marketing sins have you committed and what did you do to fix them?
Happy marketing,
Heidi Cohen
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Infographic and image: Heidi Cohen (Usage permitted but requires link to this post.)