Social media can be a minefield for businesses. We're here to help you navigate around potential problems, create meaningful interactions with your customers and make the most of your time on social media.

1. Trying to be on every possible social media site out there.

There is no need to have an account for your business on every conceivable social media site... there's just too many of them! Even if you manage to create dozens of accounts, are you really going to spend the time to maintain them all consistently?

Instead, focus on keeping a few social media accounts active, up to date and engaging. If you just have Facebook and Twitter, for example, customers can still easily find your business on social media but you don't have to spend all your time posting. An automated social media management solution makes it even easier to maintain great social media pages.

2. Reacting poorly to a negative comment on social media.

If someone posts a comment complaining about your products, services or customer care, respond with the utmost care and caution. Many businesses have lost customers and even gone under due to posting comments on social media that were not well thought out. If you get into an argument on social media, you will never come out looking good.

This is a great opportunity to show visitors and customers that your business handles complaints with courtesy and professionalism. On your social media page, always thank the customer for bringing the issue to your attention and offer a way to resolve the problem. After that, you should deal with the customer directly in person, by email or over the phone.

It can even be a positive thing for business. Recently, I had an issue with a restaurant I ate at and I contacted them. They took care of the situation right away and I took to social media to post a warm thank you and tag their restaurant. A little free publicity never hurts.

3. Not spending the time to respond to comments and questions on social media.

One of the best things about social media, and the reason many people love it, is that it creates simple open communication between customers and businesses. You don't have to call the customer service line, press a bunch of numbers and listen to an automated voice. You just post a comment on the business's social media page and (if they're a smart business) they respond pretty quickly.

If you're not monitoring your social media pages and responding to posts made by customers then you're missing out on a chance to connect with your customers. If you're not responding, you're inaction tells customers that your business doesn't value its customers' time and opinions. Customers will stop posting on your pages and may take their business elsewhere. Take the time and respond.

4. Posting mostly self-promotional content.

Social media is not like your company website; you can't just talk about how great your products and services are. Social media is all about two-way interaction between you and your customers. You want to share content that visitors are going to find interesting, useful or both. This can include pictures of your staff, fun contests, coupons, industry news, customer satisfaction stories and more.

You want your social media visitors to be engaged. Think about it: would you want to like, share or retweet this post? If not, try to make it more interesting and relevant.

Click here to view part 2! And while you're waiting, check out our whitepapers... we have one all about Facebook marketing and also one for Twitter marketing!

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