The Top Five Social Media Mistakes

No matter how you slice it, reaching out, connecting and having conversations with customer online costs a business owner time and money. Could your social-media efforts be yielding better results?

Here’s a list of the biggest mistakes I’ve seen business owners make with social media and how to avoid them.

1. Talking One-Way: Many business owners start posting status updates because they think that is all they need to do to grow their company online. But the way they do it cuts off any chance of having a two-way conversation. In today’s messaging marketplace, consumers want to be heard. If you are just talking to customers but not letting them to talk back and engage with you, then you are wasting considerable time and effort online.

When you go online and post in a status update area, do not just talk at or to people; speak with them. Tag people in a post and ask them a question. Tagging simple means that you write directly to a person on their facebook wall or on their Twitter feed. On Facebook you put the “@” sign in front of their profile name, for Twitter this sign would go in front of their username.

Related: 20 Ways to Make the Most of Your Social Media Marketing

Also, take a few minutes to stop by the “neighborhood” of each social site that you frequent and say hello, find out what your neighbors are up to, and post a quick reply. By actively engaging in these spheres, you keep your business top of mind.

2. Not Knowing When to Ask for Business: Many online businesses have conducted conversations with their connections for quite some time now, without translating this dialogue into any sales. Some companies fail to ask for business online or they ask too soon. You need to build some rapport first; people will buy from you only as much as they trust you. Set up a rule to convert conversation into clients or customers.

I follow the 3/3 rule, whereby I talk to someone no more than three times, for not more than three minutes on each occasion, freely offering tips, exploring another company’s branding or directly helping them, before I ask that person for some business. When I do the asking, I send the prospective customer a closing script or a post to indicate how I can help further.

3. Shiny Object Syndrome: With all the flashy new websites and with social networking capabilities changing by the minute, no wonder you are swept up in checking out a new site or a fresh feature when you go online. Instead of spending countless hours exploring new dazzlers, devote only a set amount of time each day or week to review the new happenings online. Otherwise you will be sucked into a vortex of shiny objects and before you know it your week is over and you have not converted any online relationships into profits. Flag interesting sites or novel capabilities in a folder or on your calendar to revisit later for research and development.

4. Poor Messaging: A consumer can become overwhelmed by dealing with all the wrong messages that are crowding the Internet lately. Company owners are projecting the wrong image through what they say online. In some cases, their posts have absolutely nothing to do with their company, brand, or personality.

Too many entrepreneurs do what I call panic posting — just posting for the sake of posting and sharing ideas that do not highlight their overall brand image. If you have a serious company, don’t post jokes and funny videos; instead post statistics and updates about your company’s team members. If your business has a relaxed image, inject humor into your posts; a funny YouTube video can go a long way.

Related: 10 Laws of Social Media Marketing

5. Sales Faux Pas: Writing how much your product or services cost in a status update or post is not only a time waste; it is plain wrong. Would you walk up to someone before you have even introduced yourself and say that your latest product is now available at a certain price for a limited time? If so, you would probably end up not only talking to yourself (the person would walk away), but also you likely would lose the entire room of people as customers just from their overhearing your sales introduction.

Instead, try sharing the pros and cons about your industry or product category and ask people to provide feedback and participate. This is a great way to bridge the distance between you and your prospects and get them involved with your company’s brand. Ultimately newfound fans will promote you without being asked because they feel included; the fact that you asked and listened goes a long way.

Whether yours is a one-person business or it has 150 employees, take time every month or quarter to examine your social media practices. You could save thousands of dollars and hours — and have more to show for it.

Related: Five Ways to Use Twitter You Might Not Know About

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8 Cool Marketing Campaigns Using Facebook Places

In the year or so since the launch of location-based Facebook Places, businesses have come up with some pretty creative marketing campaigns.

The check-in service allows brands to build their fan base while engaging and rewarding customers.  Facebook Places provides viral marketing for a company since every check-in shows up in the news feed of the user’s friends. It allows businesses to create incentives for those who come to their physical location or events.

Unlike Groupon and Living Social, Facebook Places lets you choose exactly how to structure your offer with no fee. You can build money-off vouchers or both individual and group discounts. You can choose how discounts are claimed (as in checking in a certain number of times) and how many times by it can be claimed. Charity offers can be created where donations are made based on the number of people checking in.

Here are eight Places campaigns that we think are worth highlighting.

Electronic Arts U.K. hosted a “Play4Xmas” tour at six different shopping malls across the UK in November and December. Those who checked in at each event had a chance to win up to 10 games per day.

Westfield Valley Fair in Santa Clara, Calif. has given away coupons like 25 percent off any single item at Sports Authority or 20 percent off full-priced items at Ann Taylor for checking in at the shopping center.

Nike teamed up with a Portland-based Korean taco truck to give away “Destroyer Burritos,” or fake burritos stuffed with branded athletic jackets, to those who checked in.

Onitsuka Tiger Australia was a sponsor of the Sydney Bicycle Film Festival and created a check-in point at each of 10 events. Festival attendees then checked in at their points instead of the actual venue because if they checked in at least three events and answered a question on their Facebook page, they had a chance to win a custom bike and Onitsuka Tiger gear. More than 50 percent of attendees checked in at the first event.

The University of Kentucky installed big, wooden Facebook icons on its campus to encourage students to check in at different locations around the school every day. Students used them to check in while on campus and at sporting events and the college is hoping it will help boost recruiting efforts for the students’ friends who are still in high school.

Instead of paying an arm and a leg for an exhibition table at the ITB Berlin (the world’s largest travel tradeshow), Germanwings used Facebook Places to create check-ins at each one of its competitors at the fair. When someone checked in at an airline’s booth, their status update would read something like “Air France: France for a bargain price is only available from Germanwings.” thanks to their hidden messages.

VisitBritain is a U.K. tourism promotion agency that has a “Top 50 U.K. Places” leaderboard on its fan page based on Facebook Places check-ins for the country’s landmarks.

Southwest Airlines did a holiday charity campaign last year where they made a $1 donation to the Make-A-Wish Foundation per check-in at any Southwest airport, capped off at $300,000.

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