UnMarketing: Stop Marketing. Start Engaging

Chapter 16. Seven Deadly Social Media Sins

SOCIAL MEDIA IS so new that most people are making it up as they go,^[42] but most people seem to make the same mistakes. Or dare I say sins. . . . We look at the biggest players online for business— Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—but the same concepts can be applied to any social media site.

Greed

Greed is quite a popular sin. Twitter by default is a self-centered tool. It's about us. But it's 100 times better if used as a conversational tool versus a dictation. I see people using Twitter as a glorified RSS feed for their blog or an ad-puker. So absent of personality, I wonder why they even try. Yes, they are in business, but if they believe that business is built on relationships, they need to make building them their business.

This sin holds a special place for the people who only retweet compliments about themselves. I was talking to a colleague of mine and she was asking how I have built such a large amount of followers. I mentioned that I get retweeted a lot and I retweet others. Her reply was "I retweet others all the time!" When I checked out her page, the only time she ever retweeted anyone was if it was a compliment about her or a #FollowFriday^[43] mention with her in it. You may as well tweet while looking in a mirror telling yourself you're good enough, you're smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like you.

Facebook is in a world of its own. Posting on someone's wall with a seven-line signature, mass-inviting people to every event ...