The document discusses 5 common social media fails including posting too frequently without thought, repetitive promotional posts, excessive requests to share posts, lack of strategic alignment with the target audience, and having many followers without engaging them. It advises pacing social media updates, using promotions sparingly and reciprocating favors before asking for shares. It emphasizes the importance of understanding one's audience and having engaged followers over a large following.

2. 5 Most Common
Social Media
FAILS

3. For just about every kind of business
imaginable, social media marketing
can be a genuine tonic – bringing in
connections, expanding the reach of
your brand, and interacting with
potential customers.

4. There is much you can gain from
building a presence in the social media;
but only if you do it right. Not
surprisingly, too many newcomers into
the social arena don’t get it right.
Whether by lack of experience and
insight, from ill-advised influences, or
simply by a lack of focus… there are
negative patterns of social media
interaction that you should avoid.

5. In order to ensure that you get
maximum results from the time, money
and resources you put into your social
media campaigns, you should be
familiar with the most widely common
failures. They all boil down to a few
specific patterns; and here are the 5
most common social media fails:

6. 5 Most Common Social Media
Fails | Too Much, Too Soon
Have you ever noticed how some
people/brands/companies (especially
the smaller ones) are all over the place
with repetitive status updates, which
are obviously getting spurted out by a
bot – or worse, someone without the
least bit of common sense? Don’t be
like that.

7. There is no point in creating dozens of
accounts across different websites. It’s
best to focus on a few websites and put
a bit of soul into them. There is no good
reason why you should make dozens of
status updates over the first few days.
Pace yourself, look around, think before
you type.

8. 5 Most Common Social Media
Fails | Special offer! Buy Now!
How about those who keep updating
their twitter/facebook/google+ with
repetitive, inane, desperate offerings?
You know the type: “Check out this
coupon! Buy now with discount!” Don’t
those creatures realize how the era of
the spiteful door-to-door encyclopedia
salesmen are long over?

9. Sadly, they don’t. You need to get into
the mindset of your target audience,
and realize that when something is
offered insistently, it just doesn’t sound
right. While it’s a good idea to come up
with promotions and special deals, they
should be used to pepper a bulk of
informative and helpful altruistic
interactions.

10. 5 Most Common Social Media
Fails | Please Share This!!!
For someone who’s active in a social
media channel for a while, there are
few things as annoying as someone
who only contacts them to ask for
something… even if it’s something
apparently trivial such as sharing a
piece of news or voting up a story.

11. You need to think of the “please
share/vote this” as a very special trump
card that you can only pull once in a full
moon, and that’s provided you are
ready to reciprocate when the request
arises. In fact, for best results with this
kind of strategy, it works better to
reciprocate somehow before even
asking for a favor.

12. 5 Most Common Social Media
Fails | Apples And Oranges
Why do some people have so much
bang for buck from their social media
efforts, while others barely scrape any
results after sweating their brows off
trying to play all the right cards? Why to
those poor souls on the lower end have
such a hard time getting their
campaigns to deliver?

13. A common reason is called “severe
strategic misalignment”; to put it
simply, it’s like apples and oranges. If
you’re trying to sell apples to a group of
people who want to get oranges, how
successful do you suppose you’ll be?

14. 5 Most Common Social Media
Fails | A Hollow Following
It’s great having lots of followers, and
it’s sure to impress almost everyone
who doesn’t know better. But for those
in the know, tens of thousands of
followers a guru does not make.
Because real gurus don’t just amass
followers: they engage them.

15. And it makes a world of
difference. You could have nine
thousand random followers who don’t
even know or care about who you are.
Or you could have nine hundred laser-
focused followers who are very
interested in your field of expertise, and
who may even help spread your
message. It’s entirely up to you!