7 mistakes you can make using social media

1.     Dabbling. If you only do a tiny amount you are going to get a tiny pay back. Unfortunately, like most things in life, you get back what you put in. This is why it’s so important to be involved in creating social media content that you find meaningful. If you write about or Tweet about something you have no interest in then you will find it difficult to sustain your effort over the months ahead.

2.      Ignoring it. If you ignore social media and hope it will go away what will happen is that intrepid individuals, your competition, will start doing it. Do you even know how many of your competition are tweeting or blogging or Facebooking? Social media is coming and you can't stop it. Get on board.

3.     Not aligning your social media goals with the goals of your business or your personal goals. The goal of social media is not to simply acquire more followers. Sure, there are plenty of people who want to just do that, but a business needs to align social media to its business goals and individuals need to align to whatever their personal goals are. Engaging with followers is key, focusing on quality, not just quantity.

4.    Thinking it's just a marketing and PR thing. Human resources, purchasing, the canteen, investment analysts and R&D and every other department can all benefit from the research, communications and feedback service that social media provides. Don't leave it all to the marketeers. Every division can use social media just like every division can use a telephone. Social Media can be everywhere.

5.     Copying others, not innovating. I can understand it when you start off, you look at what’s been done by other big players and you emulate, but eventually copying won’t be enough. You’ll need to come up with something new and innovative yourself. That will take real creativity and an environment where people can experiment, test, fail, and still survive. Innovation will draw on your best talents and allow you to leapfrog your competition, if you get it right. There are risks, but there are real rewards to innovation too.

6.     Being too serious. Sure, social media is serious at times, but it’s also light-hearted ;-). And don’t expect all of your messages to be super cool and super important. Sometimes you’ll put your foot in your mouth with social media. Don’t worry. It’s not the end of the world.  If you do make a mistake, don’t forget to smile! ::-)

7.     Not moving on. Social media is changing fast. Services are evolving too. Twitter is changing how it will support the software that links with it. LinkedIn is offering your contact details to anyone who is willing to spend enough to buy them. Facebook is asking for money to get all your followers to see your posts. The only constant in social media is change. Build an evolving cycle of review and test and implement into your plans and look at all emerging options on a regular basis. Keep up to date with social media blogs too and stay tuned for new developments.  

The most important services of the year 2020 are still only a developer’s dream, but if you stay in touch with what is going on you might be able to catch that dream.   

And follow this blog for regular updates and soon a list of social media resources.