Socially Stupid with Social Media

With all of the self-proclaimed social media "experts" and "gurus" floating around Facebook and the Twitterverse, you'd think more people would know what they were doing. I see countless people abusing the sites that have so much potential to be beneficial to the individual and/or company using them. I'm not claiming that I always know what I'm doing. Social media is constantly shifting, changing, growing and improving and I try my best to keep up with changing times. However, to help you be less socially stupid, here are 5 mistakes to avoid when using social media courtesy of the PR Meets Marketing blog:

1. Self-serving comments: It’s a fine line between being helpful and being self-promotional. I think this is the most common mistake you’ll see. Companies or individuals will research blogs and post comments only as way to promote their content. As a rule of thumb, it’s better to leave out any promotional stuff and add comments that contribute to the overall discussion.

2. All About Me: Many marketers and people still subscribe to the notion of broadcast media, just sending out updates about themselves. Social Media is about conversations and engagement. Listen to the conversations and participate when appropriate (see point 1).

3. Follow You, Follow Me: I call these folks the “pied pipers of social media.” You know who I mean. They’re the folks with hundreds and thousands of friends and followers on Twitter or Facebook with no discrimination. Unless you’re a top personality, be selective on who you follow.

4. Hit & Run: I’ve been noticing this trend recently. It’s very similar to point 1 but in a different way. These are individuals who join communities, liked LinkedIn Groups, and only post discussions or responses that are only related to their company. I call these folks hit & runners as they run in, post, and run out again.

5. Hot to Trot to Not: When individuals or companies begin participating on social media, they tend to be very excited. They join different networks, jump in on tweetchats and comments everywhere. But after the luster wears off, their participation begins to wane, until eventually they disappear. For corporate brands, it’s important to have a calendar of content and several individuals contributing to your social media channels.

So... how many of the mistakes are you guilty of? What other mistakes do you see people making on various social media sites? Let us know!