The 9 Biggest Social Media Blunders (That You Should Avoid)

The kick-off of different social media platforms has opened new gateways for a better communication among people.
 

As a result of this, we find everyone on the social networking websites these days. This potential has also been realized by companies and they have started stepping into the never-ending world of establishing social communication for their businesses.
 

And now, every one of us follows our favourite brands on different social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc. But, in the journey to be expressive and maintain their presence on social media, businesses often go out of their ways and post something that can negatively impact their brand’s reputation. These are known as ‘blunders’ and it is what we are talking about today.
 

Social media blunders can be a nightmare for any business as they are hard to be missed by the eyes of the audience. These blunders can be of various types, such as any incorrect piece of information, improper use of language, an inappropriate piece of content or any lame comment.
 

Benjamin Franklin has correctly said that

“By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.”

Since nobody wants failure for their businesses, you must prepare and design social media campaigns carefully.
 

Here are the 9 biggest social media blunders that businesses should watch out for:
 

Your social media accounts are unique to your business and are specifically meant for your audience to connect with you. Now imagine that you have multiple profiles on the social media.
 

How would your audience know which one to connect with? Or how would they know whether these multiple profiles are not pretending to be original?
 

Having multiple profiles is not only illegal, but also confuses your audience. It is best advised to make one profile per platform and stick with your content on it.
 

It isn’t hard to witness that many times businesses fail to realize that a background image or representation isn’t native to the business or the brand.
 

For example, In order to congratulate the finalist teams of the Football World cup, Delta Airlines tweeted two images, one that had the statue of liberty representing the US and the other had a Giraffe that represented Ghana. Since the animal giraffe is native to the country Kenya instead of Ghana, the post turned into a blunder.
 

Another social media blunder that businesses often commit is spamming their audience. No, doubt, posts are necessary for any social media campaign to work, but posting excessive content or overusing automated linking can leave your audience disturbed.
 

Instead, put up content only when it is necessary and relevant both to your audience and your business. Market research reveals that spamming annoys the audience faster than anything else does.
 

So, try not to write posts on your social media accounts as if it were your diary.
 

Most businesses fail to realize the point where they start crossing the line of appropriate and inappropriate content on the social media. Just because you witness all kinds of contents on different media platforms, it doesn’t mean that you will start posting similar content on your company’s accounts.
 

Not only can it be extremely damaging to the brand, but also hamper the success of your social media campaigns. This major blunder is a must to realize and corrected immediately before posting content in front of your audience.
 

There are a lot of things that instantly become trending on the social media. This includes both good and bad stories. One of the blunders that businesses commit is to not realize the difference between the two and use anything that’s trendy to sell their products.
 

Take the example of the brand DiGiorno that used the hashtag #WhyIstayed to sell pizzas on the social media. Why this received a lot of flak from the audience was because this hashtag was used by women to stand up with their voices when an NFL player hit his wife.

When companies try to sell their products to everyone they often end up with either decreased or no sales. Many companies commit this blunder when they plan on selling their products to everyone out there.
 

For example, the company Gap started a social media campaign #DressNormal by tweeting the hashtag to connect with a lot of people. Not only did the campaign receive considerable criticism from the critics, but it also had a huge impact on the company’s sales. In its effort to appeal to a larger audience, the company’s sales went down by 4 percent.
 

Being a public figure comes with both the pros and cons.  It is inevitable for a business to avoid criticism and negative comments about their products or brand. One of the worst things that businesses can do is delete posts that criticise their brand. These things are hard to be missed and are easily caught by someone’s eye.
 

So, if you want to reduce the impact of criticism, learn from them and highlight your good deeds, instead of committing this blunder.
 

In order to quench their appetite for perfection, brands go an extra mile to highlight their products. In many instances, this has proved to hurt the sentiments of others.
 

Consider, for example, the “Perfect body” campaign by Victoria’s secret that featured skinny models, received a lot of criticism and flak from the audience as it imparted a sense of body shaming to its customers. This blunder hurt the sentiments of the brand’s audience and tarnished the business image.
 

You may not find it to be such a big blunder, but the incorrect choice of words or spelling errors in your social media campaign can easily trigger a negative response from the audience on the social media.
 

For example, after completion of a marathon in USA, Adidas tweeted "Congrats, you survived the Boston Marathon!" which unfortunately reminded people of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. 
 

In order to stand as remarkable on the social upfront, businesses need to have a social media plan as part of their marketing strategy. This indispensable piece of strategy, if worked out correctly has the power to bring scintillating results for your business and enhance your social media presence.
 

Because everyone wants their posts to go viral and have an impact on their audience, it also becomes essential to take care of any errors or blunders that might come in this path.
 

So, these mistakes must be prevented, as it is said prevention is always better than cure.