Social Media for business is certainly a 2 edged sword, implemented correctly it is one of the most powerful tools in most companies arsenals. Getting it wrong is worse than having no strategy at all. Here are 5 common mistakes I see every day, avoid them all and you are on your way to a professional on-line presence.
1. Less is more
If I emailed you 20 times a day would you be OK with that? Not likely, your followers do not want to see their feeds bombarded with messages from you every day either. 3 or 4 high quality posts per day is more than enough.
2. Ignore the 80/20 rule
Almost as off putting as constant bombardment of your followers, is to “sell” to them with every post you make. Keep self promotion at 20% or less each week. The more you provide information that solves problems, makes your fans laugh or positions you as an influencer in your industry. The more interaction and growth in your fan base you will experience. 
3. Be silent on weekends
Social media never sleeps or takes weekends off, neither should your content schedule. It is a well known fact that interaction on social media is higher on weekends that mid week. It makes sense, weekends are when many of your followers have higher amounts of leisure time to spend on their favourite platforms.
That does not mean you have to be tied to your computer 24/7, use scheduling tools like Hootsuite to keep the flow of great content happening through out the week. Mastering these easy to use programs will be a life saver, and allow you to plan for holidays or unexpected problems that come up and just must take priority on any given day. With this in mind it is a good idea to be at least a week ahead in your schedule so you are not scrambling to find content every day.
4. Remove negative feedback
More and more customers/clients are taking to social media to air their grievances (view a previous blog post here on this subject) When you receive these in social media, you simply must deal with it and fast. Hiding it not only disrespects the grievance, you also lose an opportunity to show you are a company that values the opinion of your customers. Dealing with complaints quickly, further positions you as a leader in your industry. Scheduling programs such as Hootsuite are also a great way to track comments made about you in social media with out having to monitor each platform individually.
5. Poor Branding
Most companies use 2 to 4 social media platforms, regardless of how many you use make sure your branding on these sites are consistent with each other and your website. Nothing is more confusing than mixed messages. That does not mean you should not change them as required. For example you may have a theme you use on your home page for Christmas or an annual event of importance to your company. By all means update them to promote these events, just ensure you update them all and update then again as soon as the promotion ends. There is nothing worse than your website and social media background images promoting a summer event well after summer is gone. Or worse promoting a 1 week sales promotion that ended last week.