Anyone who has ever been read bits from the bible (or anyone who has ever watched Seven to be honest) will know of the 7 deadly sins. These are supposed to be the origin of all other sins, so these 7 behaviours are some of the worst you can commit. But little known to humanity a second set of 7 deadly sins was created during the dawn of the Internet age, when social media became a viral phenomenon and inexcusable behaviours were rife. These 7 deadly sins of social media should be avoided at all costs, if you wish to be successful on social media.
Wrath
No one likes to be criticised, and our gut response when someone says something negative about us on the Internet often goes 1 of 2 ways – we either get angry and retaliate, or we delete the offending comment. Neither of these responses means good news for your brand image, and you will fall into the sin of wrath. It’s important to remember rule 1 of the Internet. What you put on the Internet stays on the Internet for a very long time, so if you respond negatively to a comment, it won’t go away. This can sometimes be a good thing though. If someone logs a complaint with your company over social media, you can use it to respond in a quick and friendly manner. Show off your customer service skills and you might just gain more customers for it. Remember, don’t just ignore what is happening, or respond to hastily, engage in a positive way.
Greed
A lot of businesses start out on social media out of purely selfish reasons. This is not bad thing! Social media is the ideal platform to promote yourself, engage directly with potential customers and even gain some new business. But the trick is to take on a ‘givers gain’ attitude. Too often we see businesses that are greedy on social media, wanting lots of followers without followings, wanting people to promote them without doing it in return, the list goes on. Social media is a two way street, and if you give a little you can gain a lot. So if your customers are spreading the word about you, thank them by returning the favour, or with a special discount or promotion.
Sloth
There is nothing worse than a lazy social account. If it’s now July and your last post was in May, something has gone horribly wrong for you. Social media is a very instant world, and frequent updating is essential to keep up the momentum and keep your business growing. If you don’t post often enough you risk customers thinking you have gone out of business, losing the opportunity to drive sales and interact with your customers along the way. Be ready to respond to messages in a timely manner and don’t leave people hanging there. After all no one likes awkward silences.
Pride
Everyone has that really annoying Facebook friend who posts 20 selfies a day and is constantly raving about their life. Here’s a bit of a reality check for you: if you are posting nothing but highly branded, promotional or sales based content all the time, that is you, and nobody likes that guy. Instead, intersperse your message with other humorous of informative content to give your followers some value and break up the monotony.
Lust
Ahh social media lust. Defined as the desire to be on every single social network possible at the same time with the same message. We’ll let you in on a secret – it’s just not possible, and what’s more you shouldn’t really be trying. Each social network has it’s own personality, and it’s important to tailor your approach and your content to that. Social media is all about being on the right platform at the right time with the right message, for example, Instagram loves photos, Facebook likes videos and Twitter likes visuals, information and hashtags.
Envy
Envy is a natural human emotion, and something everyone feels from time to time. Sometimes, we even want to piggyback their success, in the vain hope that we too will become successful. Envy at another’s success on social media can be slightly frustrating, but that does not mean you should attempt to ape their behaviour and hope for the same results. The most common examples we see are of ‘Twitter envy’, and usually involve users hashtagging #literally #every #word and using highly irrelevant but popular hashtags to pull themselves onto the pedestal. Now we’re not grinding on chatting #hashtags, but only when they are relevant to you and your readers! When you feel the social envy creeping up, turn your thoughts to your own content plan and how you can improve it.
Gluttony
And finally, the deadly sin that will earn you a crowd of irritated customers and a lot of unfollows. Gluttons are the opposite of Sloths, and instead of not posting enough they are bombarding their chosen networks with hundreds of messages a day. This passes from the realm of ‘informative updates’ (as they so often try and convince themselves) and straight into spam territory. The sad part is, even if you have interesting thins to say they are pushed down so fast by all your other updates that they will never be found. To save you from accidental gluttony, this is our recommended social media dosage:
Twitter: No more than once per hour
Facebook: No more than twice a day
LinkedIn & Google+: no more than twice a day