How To Do Bad Social Media: 10 Examples
Lately, I've been oh-so-deeply immersed in websites and social media profiles. Guess what I'm finding? Yes, examples of bad social media!
In this post, I want to share with you these examples. Call it reverse psychology. Understand how to do bad social media to better appreciate good social media both as producer and consumer and do more of it.
Here are 10 examples that come immediately to mind.
Bad Social Media: Duplicate Content
The worst social media duplicates content. What do I mean? Try repeating a blog article over and over again. Yes, I've seen it done. Compound that by publishing duplicate content across multiple platforms - say a dozen blogs and a few other social tools. Don't duplicate content!
Bad Social Media: Incomplete Profiles
I bet you've come across a few in your day. Profiles with no photo and not one bit of information. Do you know that many businesses boast incomplete social profiles? I bet they didn't get the memo that incomplete profiles send a bad message. They also do nothing to help them get found online. Complete your profiles!
Bad Social Media: Linking to Inactive Social Profiles From a Website
It may be cool to have social profiles on a website, but if they are present they had better link to active social profiles. By active I mean Twitter accounts, Facebook Fan pages and blogs that have seen an update in at least the past week. Show social signs of life!
Bad Social Media: Quantity Over Quality
What do you think of those accounts with a gazillion followers? Especially when the account is an unkown and every follower represents a get-rich-quick-schemer? Bad social media focuses on quantity and fixates on adding more regardless of relevance or value. Always focus on quality over quantity!
Bad Social Media: Blog Articles With No Text
Would that be an oxymoron? A blog is about publishing content as in words, right? Which means you need text [and ideally 300 words of text]. And, yet, there are plenty of blogs that publish articles with just a handful of words, or perhaps just a photo or video with no text, no story, no explanation. Use your words to tell a story with meaning for your readers.
Bad Social Media: Copying Content
Quoting and giving attribution is one thing. In fact, that's something that makes my day. Coming across content that has been copied or scraped does nothing in terms of deepening knowledge or encouraging social interaction. [I did, though, enjoy this article about Content Scraping: Prevention, Repercussions, and... Benefits?] Don't event think of copying content. Refer to it, add to it, make it part of a bigger picture.
Bad Social Media: Blog Articles With No Links
Links add meaning and depth to an article. They contribute context and build on previous interpretations of a topic. Perhaps that's why a blog article with no links raises red flags. If the content is lousy to begin with, how could it possibly link to related content that would automatically position it as amateurish? Research your topic and add links to what you find that is meaningful. You'll learn and your readers will appreciate it.
Bad Social Media: Content Makes No Sense
I bet you've come across some of these articles! The ones where the words look like one large word blog signifying less than nothing. I'm not talking about Lorem Ipsum which focuses attention on graphic elements [BTW, here is a link to a site that will generate Lorem Ipsum for you!]. Rather, these are articles specializing in keyword stuffing and which add no value to a human reader. If that's what you are about, stop it. Make sense!
Bad Social Media: Where Is the Person?
Please, show me that there's a person behind the blog and the words! I'd rather see a person on a Twitter profile and desperately want to see people in Facebook photos. On a blog, I want to know who's writing and something about them. Otherwise, I'm left wondering who owns the profile, whether s/he actually exists and feels any kind of responsibility for creating value and interacting with me legitimately and truthfully. Be social and human!
Bad Social Media: 100% Autoposting
For the record, autoposting can be useful and a valuable addition to a content strategy. However, a profile that consists 100% of autoposts tells me that it isn't interested in interacting and engaging with people on that social network. Furthermore, a profile with autoposts generated entirely from updates on another platform [e.g,. Facebook updates to Twitter, and then to LinkedIn], and with all of those autoposts being impersonal, communicates a lack of interest and commitment to social interaction. Mix it up a bit and include the human touch.
Will you join in and add your bad social media examples? Which are your worst social pet peeves? Let's identify them and vow to eradicate them!
