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2015
marketing mistakes
social media

Learn from the Mistakes of Others

December 15, 2015

social media mistakes

There’s a well-known cliché that goes, “Never make the same mistake twice.” For that matter, in the era of social media and the internet’s notoriously long memory, we can expand the saying to be, “Never repeat any mistake, even if you weren’t the person who made it in the first place.”

When it comes to social media marketing, there is a long list of such mistakes that ought to serve as cautionary tales for you or your local social media company. And near the end of every year, someone helpfully collects together a handful of these to remind us of what not to do.

In this case, James Martin of CIO wrote a list of what he considers to be the 10 worst missteps made by major companies on social media in 2015. The individual examples may serve as a source of amusement or schadenfreude, in some places Martin gives the reader a helpful nudge toward the larger underlying messages.

A Few Tips for Social Media Managers

1. Proofread

We have all had our share of stressful days and we understand that the social media world has two different points of focus. On one hand you have the scheduled content calendar. On the other, you have the content that can only be created in the moment while something is trending. We have even seen mistakes in our own work and have done our best to provide an open door for communication to ensure that the content is read by more than one person.

2. Be Politically Correct

This is especially important for a small business. Large businesses have entire PR teams that can help make amends for a mistake. As a small business you do not want any negative attention drawn to you. Whether you are in Los Angeles or Buford, Wyoming, it is important that you do not act on impulse and voice your opinion on a decision or event that could draw such negative attention. A social media post can be like a bad tattoo, it sounds cool at the time but you may regret it for years.

3. Double Entendres

It is common in modern marketing (especially on social media) to make campaigns that provide messages that are left to the consumer to sort out. This can be really effective by making the user feel smart but it can backfire very quickly if there could be a crude or risqué connotation.

A good Los Angeles social media company ought to understand those messages without seeing them demonstrated via notorious social media gaffes. They include the importance of reviewing posts before giving them a permanent record on the internet, the danger of mixing personal and professional accounts, and the foolishness of deliberately giving your critics an outlet for criticism when you’re facing PR problems outside of social media.

Read Martin’s list here and see what other lessons you can draw from some of the most notable social media gaffes of 2015.

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