Monday, September 23, 2013

Social Media Monday—10 Ways You May Be Wrecking Your Social Media Presence


For writers today, an online presence can mean the difference between success and failure. But if we’re not doing it right, we may be our own worst enemy. Today I want to share 10 ways you may be wrecking your social media presence.


1. You have an inconsistent social media presence—I’m not talking about taking weekends off, but on spending consistent time building your online presence. This includes showing up on Twitter and Facebook with reasonable regularity, and keeping a regular schedule for your blog posts.

2. You over-promote—The promotion I’m talking about is SELF promotion. Use Edie’s 5 to 1 rule—for every 5 social media updates, you’re allowed one additional update about yourself.

3. Your website doesn’t have social share buttons—I don’t know how much time I’ve spent on your sites looking for your twitter handle or trying to follow you on Facebook. Most people won’t spend more than three seconds. That’s not long.

4. You engage in Hashtag overload—Hashtags are great, and using them CORRECTLY can net you a lot of new followers. But correctly means no more than two per update. When you up your ante to three, the results begin to drop off.

5. You use auto-responders—Is there anyone out there who likes to talk to computers? Not me. Beyond that, we’re a pretty savvy group. We can tell an auto-respond message from a real one.

6. You’re obsessed with the numbers—Social Media growth takes time. Shortcuts bring more trouble than help. As long as you’re seeing growth, you’re doing well.

7. You don’t utilize a scheduling program—Personally I prefer Hootsuite. It keeps me visible online without having to spend hours a day tied to the Internet.


8. You’re guilty of hogging the stream—This means you post three or more updates in a row. You’ll find that behavior will encourage people to unfollow and unfriend you in droves. Spread out your updates and keep your connections happy.

9. You try out every new platform that appears—No one can do everything well. Focus your energy on Facebook and Twitter. With these two platforms you’ll hit almost 100% of your audience. After that, no more than one or two more. Focus, focus, focus.

10. You send out game invitations—This is a personal one for me. I used to get so many game requests I finally made it a hard and fast rule that I do NOT play games on Facebook. I’ll give anyone a pass for the first invitation you send, but after that, I will immediately unfollow anyone who sends me another one.

Now it’s your turn, what turns you off when it comes to social media? Is there something that leads you to immediately sever a connection? Share, so we can all see things from a different perspective.

Don’t forget to join the conversation!
Blessings,
Edie

22 comments:

  1. Hi Edie -

    Great tips. Just so you know, Facebook sends out those game invitations even if your friends don't. I've posted my objections to game invitations and discovered this.

    Another thing I've posted on: don't answer their question of whether or not you know someone outside of Facebook when someone friends you. It could cause that person's suspension from requesting friends.

    Blessings,
    Susan :)

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    1. Susan, you're so right, there are sponsored invitation to games on FB. I can't do anything about those so I think of them as commercials. There are also sponsored tweets on Twitter. During the campaign, Obama was a major irritant there! (No political meaning, I just hate commercials).

      I also don't usually answer the question on fB unless I am friends outside FB. Thanks for dropping by, Blessings, E

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  2. Replies
    1. Glad you found them helpful - thanks so much for taking time to stop by! Blessings, E

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  3. Thanks, Edie. We need to be reminded to focus, focus and not feel overwhelmed when it comes to social media.

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    1. Focus is hard for me, that's why I harp on it so much! LOL! Thanks for sharing, Blessings, E

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  4. As always, thanks for the helpful info, Edie! I will review these and apply!! Praying sweet blessings for you!!

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    1. Kristi, I love seeing your smiling face this morning (even if it is just an avatar)! Glad you found this helpful, Love you! E

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  5. I especially hate receiving the game invitations and also think the harsh comments sent to the masses about not wanting them sent is equally a problem.

    I love learning from you Edie and wonder if you could address the Google + followers you have in the left column. Seems you use that in lieu of the "following this site"

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  6. Mary, I'm so glad you're getting helpful information! As far as the Google+ followers, I have a Google+ account and those are the folks I interact with. When I schedule my social media everyday, I send updates to my Google+ account just like FB and Twitter. This gadget is like having a FB gadget that shows pics of my friends and followers. I do still have the old Google friend connect box (it's way at the bottom on the left side) But it doesn't accomplish anything. Those folks don't get updates when I post my blog or anything useful. Hope this helps, Blessings, E

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    1. Thank you, Edie.
      While waiting for your response, I scavenged through the process and figured out how to do it. I learn so much for you and am very grateful for your marketing helps.

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  7. Edie, in regards to the social share buttons on blogs--specifically Blogger--I'm itching to update/spruce up the ones I have on the bottom of each blog post but, for the life of me cannot find out where on Blogger to do so. Any direction?

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    1. Elaine, there isn't a way to tweak the post sharing buttons and they're not that important. The social share buttons at the end of each post are just generic buttons for your audience to share that particular post.

      The social share buttons that ARE important are the ones in your sidebar or header that take your readers to YOUR profile where they can follow you. The ones that follow a post do NOT link to your personal social media profiles.

      Hope this helps. Blessings, E

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    2. It does--I believe the share ones on my sidebar are working :)

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  8. Number 8 is my pet peeve. If someone tweets more than 3 or 4 times a day, I immediately click on unfollow .

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    1. Cynthia, I hope you mean 3 or 4 times in a row. I tweet 30+ times a day sometimes! but never closer than every 15to 30 minutes! Blessings, E

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    2. I don't mind how often someone tweets as long as the tweets aren't hogging the stream, and aren't all the same. I unfollowed one author who tweeted "Buy my book XX" every hour, then the next day she'd tweet "Buy my book YY" every hour, and so on.

      Apart from that, my pet hate is the autoresponders or the people that want me to log in to another site to 'validate' them following me, as a way of cutting out spam followers. It's not very friendly. Can't you decide for yourself whether or not I'm a real person?

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  9. Thanks for reminding me I don't have to do it all. Now, to do what I do better...

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  10. Edie~

    Thank you for this list! Some of these I don't have a problem with but it's good to be aware of all of them. I have hidden people on Facebook for three reasons. The two that relate to this post are:

    1. Your #8 - especially if they constantly share the minutia of their lives & I really only know them through Facebook.

    2: People who continually post offensive or morally repugnant comments/pics, etc.

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  11. In my view, facebook game requests seems to be more awkward than any other services in the website. After my inbox is crowded with hell of game requests I quit Facebook for few days. I think Social Media Agencies can provide some kind of Quality games which makes more engagement from user side.

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  12. I dislike game invitations as well! I always turn off all game notifications when I recieve them.
    I set up a Hootsuite account a few months ago but I haven't set aside time to figure out how to utilize it yet! I thought the rule was 3 hashtags per tweet so I'll be sure to limit it to two. Thanks, Edie.

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