Having social media accounts for business is not only considered as necessary for business owners, but also essential. It is not an unfamiliar sight anymore for us to see businesses being active on social media. The reason is simple; social media is a “place” where the majority of people are just “there” socialising with each other. It’s like you are spreading brochures to everyone you see so that they will know about your business and what you sell and offer, the only difference is that you don’t have to see them in person to promote your business. Also, you can reach to a huge number of your target audience without having to count them in person. For that reason, social media has been considered as an ideal platform for a somewhat “budget-saving” promotion with more effective results.

That being said, you can only “taste” good social media influence if you use it properly. Unfortunately, there are many businesses “abusing” the usage of social media as a part of their marketing strategies that can soon result in damaging their brand reputation by posting things that people don’t want and don’t need to see. If you are a business owner who uses social media as a part of your brand’s marketing tools, then watch out! You might do these mistakes without realising it! Keep reading this article to find out if you have, unknowingly, done this or not.

Low quality photography

Sometimes what you see matters more than you can imagine. Even if you offer high quality products or, if you own a restaurant, you serve very delicious food, if you show bad quality photos representing them to your target audience; it would end up decreasing your audience’s mood, like this one:

Well, the steak looks really well-cooked and juicy, but would that photo increase your appetite? From that photo alone, you might think the restaurant is dirty and not organised – you might even think the food is far from delicious. Who knows if you never really go there, right? But would you go there after seeing that photo? We wouldn’t, though.

Do this instead:

If you own a restaurant, food photography is one of the key elements in not only increasing your potential customers’ appetite, but also promoting high quality service. From a single photo, people can see the environment, the situation as well as the quality of your business place. Therefore, make a big effort in presenting your place. That being said, you don’t have to buy a $2,000 camera to make it real. Nowadays, high quality mobile phone can also offer high quality photos and application. You can add a touch of Photoshop to make a quick edit to your photos.

“Forced” content

One of the important facts of building a business includes being real and authentic, meaning that your business should present real stuff about your business and make it uniquely you. Authenticity is a must in a business, because that is what makes your business different than other businesses in the same industry. That being said, being authentic doesn’t mean we shut ourselves from the world. We do need to follow the trends and what’s happening around the world, as long as it is still related to our business. We get it that you are trying to chase a new opportunity of getting noticed by your target audience, since trending topics can increase your chance to be seen by the majority of social media users, but you don’t force a trending topic that is unrelated or irrelevant to your business into your business social media, like this:

When you sell products, of course you will promote your own products, right? Just because Apple has a huge number of audience’s attention in their hashtag, doesn’t mean you have to use their hashtag to boost visibility of your business’ social media account. If you do that, you will only damage your brand’s reputation, because you come off as inconsistent and rude. Imagine, you were selling kitchen products, but all of a sudden, you added #Apple hashtag to your tweet.

Do this instead:

You can only use trending topics as additional stuff in your content, only if the topic is still related to your brand. For example, you are a brand selling cosmetics, and in October where autumn and Halloween season is in the air, you can promote autumn make up series or Halloween make up series as seasonal products to increase sales. You can use trending hashtags that are mostly used by the majority of users if the hashtags are all about #autumn or #Halloween.

Insensitive content

Natural disasters are tragedies that, of course, no one wants. Unfortunately, there are some people still using this kind of situation as an opportunity to increase traffic and sales. Here’s what’s even worse:

The hashtag #SupportJapan was once a trending topic when huge disasters occurred in Japan that included tsunami and earthquake in 2011. Although the said brand had well-meaning intention regarding this situation, the way they conveyed the message didn’t seem to be one to most people. As seen from the screen-captured picture above, the brand was going to help Japan up to $100,000 if people retweeted their tweet. Well, seriously? If you want to help people, just help them. Nobody cares and nobody needs to know that too.

Do this instead:

If you want to help those people impacted by disasters, just help them without expecting something in return. People value your brand not only based on your high quality services, but also your “inner beauty” and “action.” Helping people but expecting retweets in return is not helping at all. If you cannot help them in terms of money, you can send your prayers to them using the hashtag, but only do so because you really mean it, not because you want something out of it.

Using too many hashtags

We get it; you want more people to see your products. However, using too many hashtags can backlash really badly, because it may come off as spammy and trashy.

Do this instead:

According to a research done by Buffer, the ideal number of hashtags on Instagram should be 11 hashtags and the ideal numbers of Twitter’s hashtags should be one or two.

Personal opinion

Just because you hate a public figure, doesn’t mean you can express your dislike towards that person on your social media account, let alone your business’ social media account! That’s going to be a PR disaster created by you yourself. Keep your personal opinion to yourself; the world doesn’t need to know. Also, if you are a member of the social media team in a company you are working for, you should know that your personal opinion is not necessarily the same as your team’s opinion. If you dislike a public figure, doesn’t mean the other social media team members also dislike that person, especially if you are managing the whole company’s social media, what you write will represent the whole company itself, even though people in the same company might not hold the same idea.

Do this instead:

Keep your personal opinion to yourself. When you are the representation of your company’s social media account, you are the key in increasing your company’s brand reputation. Therefore, you can only choose to share wisely. Don’t get involved in a trending topic that is not only irrelevant to your business, but can also be possible to create disaster if you are not careful in word selections. If it is possible, stay out of it.

Typo is a big no-no type

We know that humans make mistakes. But what if you could fix those mistakes before you could proudly launch something? It is simple if you make mistakes in writing social media status updates – you can easily edit it and update it again. However, what if you made mistakes in a logo design? That’s a serious problem! Why? Well, that’s because you can actually inspect it thoroughly before you launch it and fix it before you make any mistake! Just because you are tired, doesn’t mean you can slack off on this one.

Mitt Romney’s campaign made an embarrassing typo that said “A better Amercia” that resulted in social media disasters – at least to his campaign.

Do this instead:

Before you make something, whether it is an app, a website or a social media post, you must always check for any misspelling or grammatical error; otherwise, it would not only be embarrassing for your business, it would also ruin your business credibility, and getting back your good image might also take time.

That’s what you won’t really need when promoting your brand on social media, because clearly, nobody wants and needs to see that on their timeline. It would just be a waste of time and also be a “thorn” in your promotion efforts. Stay low profile; be more humble and aware of the world’s situation. Don’t be blind by the ambition to reach people in a negative way. Just be real and relevant. That way, you can lead a successful social media campaign for your business.