So many companies and corporations of today have jumped on the social media bandwagon, which in theory is a good idea. However, if the company or whoever they have controlling the social media does not know how to use it properly, the plan could backfire in multiple ways.

So, here are some common mistakes that businesses new to the social media sphere may make, and how they can avoided:

1) Over posting: In their attempt to make a strong, immediate connection with their audience, oftentimes businesses will alienate them all together. A business should not exceed a maximum of 24 tweets per day, allowing for about one per hour; Facebook should have half as many posts at around 12. These social media outputs should also be planned so they are not all posted within a couple hour time span, so you are consistently putting information about your business out there.

2) Imperative content: Whatever you are posting for your business should ultimately increase your follower’s knowledge or interest in your business. The worst thing you can do is post just to post because you haven’t in a while. Also keep in mind everything you post will reflect on your business: the sources you use, articles you post, people you quote, etc. If you constantly post the same information, or information that doesn’t pull your reader’s interest, they may stop looking at your posts altogether, or worse unsubscribe.

3) Monitor your progress: This will ensure your efforts to target and appeal to your audience have not been in vain, and that you are not continuing strategies that are not working. It is also an excellent source of quantitative data that you can use to measure the business’ progress through social media from year to year.

4) Don’t over promote yourself: Posting what’s going on in your business, asking the public’s opinion about your business, and overall pushing your business’ agenda is all well and good, but you don’t want that to be your sole social media interaction. Finding other businesses, bloggers, or even celebrities who support similar causes or morals to you; this will allow diversity in posts as well as show that your business is necessary and has a ‘nitch’ in the market.

5) Decide if social media is right for you: Not every business is ideal for all types of social media; for example, if your business is not one that has multiple events, promotions, or exciting information the public will want to know multiple times a day, then Twitter may not be for your business. Instead, you may want to utilize Facebook, where you can not only post updates on your business easily, but you also don’t need 20 or so new bits of information a day to put up.