I talked about what social marketing is and how they can help us , as well as the measurement tricks. This post is about things to avoid in social marketing strategy. After reading through all these posts, readers can get a thorough understanding of social marketing strategy.

Here, I list 6 things to avoid in your social marketing:

1.Don’t Re-tweet or copy /paste testimonials or compliments: At first glance, people may think it is good idea to spread the ” compliments” to increase people’s perception of certain  “product.” Unfortunately, it results in “unfollow” and complaints.

2. Don’t blast your Facebook friends with a list of irrelevant events: This is very common these days. In order to increase awareness of certain events, your Facebook friends send invitation to all of their friends who may not even in the country. Sometimes, people may block or ignore you from now on. This is not worthwhile.

3. Don’t implement social outreach if you are not good at it: techniques like software, systems or tactics which can automate your friend request, post in your social network are spamming your friends’ page. It makes people feel spammed by your posts. On the other hand, this will ruin your reputation.

4. Don’t expect people to pay much attention to your post: every post should have its target audience. Don’t expect everyone to know about it. It is your target audience who should know .

5. Treat your clients as friends: Don’t blast your clients ! A lot freelancers blast their clients who don’t pay. It is never good to blast people , especially in the business context.

6: Treat your clients as friends: Don’t talking without listening. this is the step to know what your clients want or what the trend in the industry is. Read your client’s posts , analyze it and use it. You can check out what they” like” ,“retweet” or “share”. This can provide a lot information about your client.

Most of the tips above is just common sense. Treat your clients/friends as if they were you. Then, you can get a better understanding of what is appropriate and what is not. Moreover, most of social marketing techniques are from the traditional marketing concepts we learnt. The main difference is the context. However, the principle is the same.