Is your company facing huge backlash on social media due to an insensitive post? 

This could be the scariest nightmare for companies who want to utilize their social media platforms for branding purposes. But they should keep in mind that social media platforms act like fuel and slight negligence can ruin everything. It happened in the past (and still could happen) and big brands became prey to such social media blunders. A noted name is Starbucks who went under boiling waters due to the insensitive (or irresponsible) responses to their customers via social platforms. 

To give you a NOT-TO-FOLLOW list, we created this post that includes 5 social media branding blunders. 

Visual Graphic Plagiarism 

While you post something, post it responsibly as people are always monitoring the content you share with them. And one of the social media branding mistakes that companies make is to steal someone’s creative work, alter it a bit and share with their name. Clothing brands are more prone to making such blunders that drags them towards public mockery and ridicule when people try to point their blunder instead of getting impressed. 

If you want to succeed in social media marketing and make your brand a reliable one, among others, then you must invest in a creative team. And also hire a quality assurance department who’d check every post that you publish on social media and prevent such incidents of visual graphic plagiarisms that bring bad name for the brand instead of doing any good. 

No Optimized Posts 

In order to succeed in your social media game, you must understand the core rules for each of the platform that you intend to use. See, each platform is no less than a country with its own culture and language that people use to communicate with each other. And this is where most of the brands fail to adapt themselves according to that platform. Their posts are more like a social media disaster than a visual story for their audience (which they hate to see or interact). 

In order to win the social media marathon, you must closely study each platform, how it works and what language it has. And once you do that, just optimize your post according to that platform and you’ll have prominent results just by speaking in that platform’s language. 

Leaving Bio Section Incomplete

If you look closely to all the successful brands on social media platforms, you’ll be quick to notice one common characteristic in all of them. They all use the bio section very strategically and that’s what makes them a professional and an authority in the social media universe. 

One of the social media branding blunders, that less performing companies make, is to leave that bio section incomplete when they can use that space very strategically. Anyone coming to your page for the very first time would want to know about your company, right? What if its blank and they deem you as those non-serious wannabes who created a social media page but had no time to work on it later? You could lose a potential customer when you can find a confirmed sale even without attending that visitor all by a killer bio. Work on your social media page’s bio section! 

No Consistent Social Posts

You know what’s a big turnoff for your fans? Your posting when you’re in mood to post and disappear when you don’t want to share anything with them.

Social media users are never satisfied of quality content and they expect to see something useful, amusing, or even informative after an equal interval. As a brand, trying to win their hearts on social media platforms, you must remain consistent with your posting schedule. Because that’s another mistake unsuccessful companies make when applying their social media strategy. 

Follow a calendar, having all the key posting dates, and you’ll find consistency in your social media postings instantly. 

Posting Irrelevant Content

Brands should separate themselves from political matters or those discussions that can divide their audience into two groups. Suppose, you sell flowers (and promote them online on social media) but your posts are usually polls about the mayor’s performance. This very act of dragging irrelevant content in your social media branding can sabotage your whole strategy. Because people would come to your page for bashing the political parties when they should be discussing about your products. If you don’t want to ruin your business, you must not share irrelevant content on your social media platforms which is another big blunders that failed companies do. 

**Additional Blunders**

No Social Media Strategy

Some business pages share content that indicates that they hired a 13-year-old for managing the posting on their behalf. Professional companies. In short, they don’t have a proper plan what to post and when to post and hope that their audience will understand everything they post about. 

Don’t ever do that mistake and initiate your social media branding in absence of a social media marketing strategy. Because if you want to sound yourself as an authority, you must know what to say and, most importantly, when to say. This way you’ll find managing your company’s social media a less hectic work and you’ll know what exactly are you trying to communicate to your audience via your social media postings. 

Using Fake Followers

If you truly want to go from social media zero to a super-duper hero, never go near the services that offer followers and likes. Such services usually offer followers that would be dead within a week and you’ll be on level 0 even after spending $$$ and investing your time in their bogus solutions. See, social media branding is just like nurturing a plant in your backyard which requires patience and consistency. If you don’t know this trade, you can always hire a social media agency to do things on your behalf but never trust a follower exchange service, ever. 

Do let us know about more blunders that you think should be in this list so your fellow readers can avoid them beforehand. 

About Author: James Warner is a social media enthusiast and branding expert. He is currently associated with a logo design company and his core work is to craft astonishing logo designs for their clients to make brands look amazing.

Share.

Alex is a writer and content marketing specialist. He is currently working for Breakline, a UK based SEO Agency.