The Absolute Worst Thing a Business Can Do on Social Media

If you were to ask me the number one mistake business owners make when trying to do their own social media, I might be tempted to say overselling their product or service. Social media is a networking tool, not a megaphone! Beyond that, there is one thing that is even worse: buying likes/followers. Here are my top four reasons why buying followers is a bad idea, and what business owners should do instead.

1. When you buy followers, they are usually FAKE. When I go through the thousands of followers a new client has purchased before hiring me, they're often extremely obvious bots. That, or they're accounts like my client's: they've given a paid like/follow service access to their account, and therefore their account has liked/followed thousands of similar accounts. They may also be "click farmers" - real people who are paid to like/follow a client's accounts. For more on click-farming, check out this excellent video by Veritasium.
2. Fake followers drive down post reach. Fake followers usually have absolutely no relevance to your business. Their only benefit is to drive up your overall follower counts. With social networks across the board implementing news feed algorithms, having thousands of fake followers who aren't engaging with your content often means that your post reach dwindles away to nothing.
3. Fake followers max out follow caps. If you purchase thousands of likes or follows from a spam service, chances are your account will follow thousands of accounts to get there, and you will quickly reach your follow limit on Twitter and Instagram. That will prevent you from following other accounts that are actually relevant to your business.
4. Buying fake followers can open you up to hackers and credit card fraud. As explained here, people who are willing to take your money to hook you up with fake followers may also be willing to sell your info to others. Stay safe! This aspect of the trade is especially troubling to me when I see my client's accounts followed real teens and even tweens who only posted a few times on Instagram and had clearly used the same follower purchasing company to drive up their numbers.

Instead of buying fans and followers from a shady service who tags you in a post or direct messages you, here's what to do instead:

• Generate organic social media growth by following and engaging with legitimate accounts.
• Create extremely targeted ads through native ad platforms to attract legitimate fans/followers. Yes, you may still get a few fake followers this way, but the more specific you are (think demographics, regions, interest keywords, languages spoken, etc) the more likely you are to find real people.
• Instead of paying someone with questionable ethics to get a few hundred or a few thousand fake followers, hire a real social media manager to create both organic and paid social media growth.

Yes, You Can Hire Someone to Manage Your Twitter Account

When people ask what exactly a social media manager does and I explain it to them, one of the most common responses I get is: "You mean I can hire someone to tweet for me?" Yes, you can! "But how do you know what to say?"

A good social media manager is a chameleon. To determine what to tweet on their behalf, I soak up all the details of my client's business and create a custom content strategy. I then develop their voice and tone down to the smallest detail. Are their hashtags practical or whimsical? Would they use periods at the end of sentences or ellipses? Do they use contractions? What about slang? When you only have 140 characters to work with, these tiny elements make a big difference. They are what creates authenticity and prevents tweets from sounding corporate or canned.

Managing a Twitter account for a brand also means curating and developing their online community. Retweets, follows and favorites further express the brand's identity and help it connect with the right customers, partners and prospects. I once took over a local business' Twitter account and discovered that the agency who theyd worked with previously had followed nearly 2,000 Twitter accounts of peope all across the country, in an effort to build their community. The problem was, a vast majority of those people would never visit the city the business was in, let alone shop there. A good social media manager will develop a Twitter community that is relevant to your business.

One of the most important things that a social media manager provides on Twitter is a high and consistent volume of posts. If you're posting only once a day, no one is seeing your messages. Opinions differ on exactly how many posts per day is effective, but no matter what your goal total is, boosting the volume of posts gives you more opportunities to be heard throughout the day.

Long story short, it is entirely possible (and highly recommended!) to find someone to tweet for you instead of trying to do it yourself. Hiring someone to manage your Twitter account will give you a more consistent, engaged, effective presence and free up your time to focus on the work of your business.

5 Questions to Ask Yourself Before Using Hashtags

It seems like hashtags are everywhere these days, from comedy sketches to commercials. Brands of all sizes are trying to cash in on the conversation tool, with mixed results. To make the most of your hashtags, ask yourself these five questions:

1. Are others using this hashtag?  It might seem basic, but if no one else is using the hashtag, what purpose does it serve? Fun or funny commentary style hashtags can make you seem clever and accessible, but excessive and unnecessary tags can lead to a decrease in engagement. Know your brand and what is appropriate for your audience. To stay professional and polished, leave it off unless you're creating a new conversation and have a concrete plan to promote it and get it to spread. 
2. Are you using the right hashtag?  For a sexual health writer, it might be tempting to use #ED, since it is the commonly used abbreviation for erectile dysfunction, but a little research will show that the education community uses #ed in their conversations.
3. Are you adding to the conversation?  When you use a hashtag, your post becomes part of the larger conversation on Facebook or Twitter. Consider what benefit you are providing to the community as a whole by participating in that conversation. 
4. Will your hashtag benefit you?  If you aren't adding to the conversation, ask yourself if your hashtag contribution will provide a benefit to your account through exposure to people who are following that topic.
5. If you're tagging a name, would an @mention be better?  If you are trying to get the attention of or acknowledge a particular account, an @mention may be more appropriate. On the other hand, multiple @mentions can seem spammy, so hashtags may be better. Hashtags will also help with searchability and cross-posting to Facebook.  

How have hashtags changed your conversation? What other hashtag-use questions or guidelines would you add? Leave a comment below.

Social Media After Death (Five Steps to Plan Your Digital Afterlife)

As the population of social media users increases (and ages), the topic of what happens to your social networks after you die is bound to come up. The recent death of one of my young coworkers, who was active on Facebook, brought the issue to mind for me when I overheard one coworker say to another "What? But I didn't see anything about it on Facebook!" As someone with Facebook and Twitter friends in many states and countries, I've often thought that for the news of my death to reach my entire circle of friends, it would have to be posted on my social networks. But these things don't happen automatically, and social media may not be a priority for a grieving family. It's up to users, therefore, to make their wishes known in terms of if and how they would like their social profiles handled in the event of their death.

Here are five steps to plan your social media afterlife:

1. Make a plan (aka follow these steps). Yes, it's uncomfortable to think about. But if the worst happens, you and your loved ones will be prepared. (I'm starting to sound like a funeral home...)
2. Make it safe. Just emailing your usernames and passwords to your mom doesn't cut it. Either keep a hard copy in a safe, secure place or find an online resource to safeguard your privacy. Check out Mashable for a few resources (some free, others paid) that provide everything from username and password transfers to emails from the afterlife: http://mashable.com/2010/10/11/social-media-after-death/.
3. Think about what information you want out there after you're gone and what can be taken down (photos, posts, profile information, etc)
4. Consider how you'd like people to be able to interact with your profiles after your death. It can help in the grieving process, for example, for friends to be able to leave messages on the Facebook wall of a deceased person or access their photos. When a person is reported as deceased on Facebook, their account is "memorialized" and privacy settings are enhanced to allow only friends to see the profile or locate it in search.
5. Share your wishes with your loved ones. Having a plan is great, but only effective if someone knows what that plan is.

There are a lot of resources out there on this topic, but I hope this post has provided a basic framework to help you begin your own plan.

For those of you who have unfortunately experienced the loss of a loved one without this type of plan in place, Facebook provides a form to report a deceased person. Filling out this form will prompt Facebook to memorialize the person's account. On Twitter, loved ones can contact the company via mail or email and provide verification of the death to deactive the account and/or save a backup of the user's public Tweets. Check the policies or help sections of other social networks to find information on their process for handling profiles after death.


UPDATE: Here are some very thorough and useful articles on this topic from an Australian life insurance copmany.

• What Happens Online When You Die [Infographic Collection]
• Guide to Preparing  for Death [Infographic]
• What Happens Online When You Die [White Paper]

The Power of Profreading

Did you notice something wrong with the headline of this post? Congratulations! You can proofread! Now rinse and repeat with your own social media posts. Just because social media is a casual, informal marketing format doesn't mean your messages shouldn't be as carefully crafted as any other type of marketing. Proper editing and proofreading will keep you looking professional in the eyes of your fans and followers, and prevent the dreaded "hide," "unlike" or "unfollow."

Here's why:

• Typos, mistakes and grammatical errors are easy to make, but hard for fans and followers to forgive and forget. They simply look sloppy and unprofessional.
• While errors in blog posts can be edited, Twitter and Facebook don't let you edit posts. It's either delete it, or live with it.
• If a fickle follower or fan sees a post twice because you have to delete and re-post it due to an error,  they might hide your posts or unlike/unfollow you. In Facebook, fans can hide your posts and unlike you right from your news feed by clicking the "X" next to the offending post.
• If (on Facebook) fans "like" or comment on the erroneous post, you won't want to delete it and it will be immortalized on your wall.
• On Twitter, people might RT your erroneous tweet, making your mistake visible to their followers as well as yours.

The good news is that these errors are easy to avoid by thoroughly editing and proofreading your posts. So take your time, use spell-check, read it aloud or share it with a friend/coworker to keep your accounts looking professional.

Is Social Media Right for Every Brand?

A friend of mine asked recently if I foresee a future where every organization has a social media presence. I said yes, but the question is if they'll all be effective. So when is social media not right for a brand, or what brands aren't right for social media?

Launching a social media strategy or campaign might not be right for a brand if:

• There is no clear or consistent business plan or marketing strategy. It's all well and good to start a Facebook page, but your new fans aren't going to stay with you for long if you're not clear about your products or messages or your plan for the future.
• The brand's managers don't have the time/knowhow to devote to social media or the ability to hire someone who does. As any social media addict or parent of a socially adept teen can tell you - social media is a time suck. If you don't have the time to devote to your social media strategy (monitoring your channels on a daily basis, interacting with fans and other pages, posting, etc) and you can't (or don't want to) hire someone who does, your brand won't survive or pull much weight in the social arena.

The issue of what brands may or may not be right for social media is contentious. You might think that businesses people don't want to talk about or engage with wouldn't do well, but just type "Funeral Home" into Facebook search and you'd be surprised. (822 people like Pray Funeral Home in Charlotte, Michigan) Even brands people traditionally shy away from admitting they like or don't usually want to interact with can do just fine. I would argue instead that brands that can't consistently provide engaging, meaningful content are the only type that aren't right for social media, and that can be changed.

So what do you think? Can you envision a future where every brand, business and organization  has an effective social media presence?

Thanks to @tomheg for the photo: http://tpdsaa.tumblr.com/post/2724755436/submitted-by-tomheg