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Social media marketing is kind of like traditional media marketing, only going a million times faster. It’s like a sped up version of reality, Instagram’s Hyperlapse writ large. Trends can go from hot to super lame in less time than ever before: indeed, social media has made middle schoolers out of all of us.
Think about old media trends. Apple’s Think Different commercial continued to spawn imitators years after it first ran. How long do companies have to jump on a trend in today’s world? Three weeks? Less? Hardly enough time to formulate an answer, let alone plan and film a commercial shoot.
It truly is a brave new world of marketing in media. These days it’s harder and harder to stay relevant. We’ve assembled some of our least favorite social media trends here—make sure you don’t fall into the trap!
Live blogging
Enough with the live blogs! Unless you’re managing the social media account of a news agency, your fans probably aren’t coming to you for their news! This sounds simple, but is apparently quite complicated for some brand managers to take to heart. Maybe they’re just bored? Either way, live blogging clogs up all of our various feeds and to be honest? Your fans probably don’t care what your brand has to say about the Super Bowl. This can even get you some bad press.
Remember what people were trying to find when they searched for your brand and then liked, followed, or subscribed to the page. If your brand is about sports, then it makes sense to comment on the Super Bowl. But your coverage probably won’t be as good as actual news, so maybe leave that to the professionals? Focus on high impact, low volume messaging.
Focusing on one channel
Overreliance on one channel of social media can be a huge oversight. Only a few months ago, this advice wouldn’t have made sense. Indeed, in that innocent age, many brands made their entire existence on the Facebook, ignoring Twitter and all the other smaller channels. And then came the complete collapse of organic reach—instigated by Facebook itself!
Facebook drew brands in with free reach, allowing them to freely communicate with their fans in an unprecedented way. Many brands became reliant on this. Then, one day, all that reach dissolved. Now, brands need to pay for their reach on Facebook. A crude bait-and-switch? Perhaps. But it’s business, and that’s the way it goes. By covering your bases, you can avoid over-reliance on a particular platform
Stream-of-consciousness posting
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It’s easy to find lists of the most offensive social media blunders ever committed, because companies keep doing it! If it’s not DiGiorno making offensive domestic violence references, it’s McDonald’s soliciting stories from their fans that somehow turned out to be less than flattering.
The best antidote? Write your tweet or post, then go make yourself a cup of tea, drink a glass of water, do some stretches. Come back five minutes later and reread it with a clean mind. Does it still look okay? If it does, run it by a coworker. Did they find any problems? No? Then it’s probably fine to post.
These problems happen when companies post before they think. A little reflection can go a long way towards moderating the worst social media impulses.
Trying to cover up mistakes
Several characteristics of social media make it an especially treacherous territory. A lot of this comes from its real-time nature: sometimes, it really feels like there isn’t enough time to think things through. In traditional marketing, the campaign cycle is measured in weeks and months, not hours and minutes. This sense of haste makes it easy to make mistakes. And that’s why it’s so important that, when you do make a mistake, just own up to it. If there’s one thing that makes a nascent crisis worse, it’s attempting to cover up mistakes by deleting tweets and obfuscating facts. The internet loves to catch someone in a lie, so just take your licks and hope that everyone moves on. Remember what they say: do not feed the trolls. If you do mess up, just own up to your mistake and move on.
The bottom line
Always remember why your audience is following you. They’re probably not following you for general world news, nor are they interested in your brand’s commentary on important issues. They expect you to provide a certain type of content, so give it to them! It’s that simple.
Russel Cooke is a business writer who recently moved to Los Angeles. Follow him on Twitter @RusselCooke2.
