Some mistakes companies shouldn't do on social media

As we said several times social media isn’t complicated. At the end of the day it is all about listening to your customers, being helpful to them and let them do the rest. For many companies it is still difficult to plan and implement social media successfully.

There could be several reasons for this, let’s see them:

Have a strategy. Sometimes companies enter social media without knowing why, or the objectives, or even without knowing the most suitable platform for them. Also a key factor is to know your audience, where they are and what they do, are they online at all?

Most companies only talk about their products or services and not looking at the bigger picture, that way it would be difficult for people to be engaged. A great example is Kodak and their blog, A Thousand Words. The blog is about photography and creativity in general, nothing to do with cameras.

Another reason is that some companies listen to customers but do not take action…what’s the point then?! If a company creates an online presence that’s open and allows customer feedback, it creates the expectation that the company is going to do something with that feedback. Worse than not being heard is being ignored…isn’t it?

Many people, including myself, think corporate web sites are just like online brochures. Nowadays customers expect interaction where content creation is the key to social media success. Every company should have a web site with a content management system that allows for quick, easy content creation without the IT department needing to recode a web site. Anyone in the organization should be able to publish via a CMS. How many companies are ready for that?

  

Customers should be at the core of the brand. When policies, procedures, products and processes become more important than the customer, there’s no way social media efforts can be effective. When your employees are more concerned with what’s in or out of their job description than doing the right thing to help the customer, that’s not a culture that’s likely to build trust and advocacy for your brand.

Lastly, as we have recently seen on Twitter in Oman (thanks to fellow blogger other Oman), be ready to get negative comments. Some companies’ cultures or employees aren’t just ready yet to engage with those opinions, in that case then stay away from social media or have an expert to assist you.

There is probably a few more other things corporates should not do, if you think of any please add them. Thank you.