Social media has become an integral part of daily life in a relatively short space of time. It takes many forms, but Twitter seems to have generated a particularly high profile.
It seems that half the planet is Tweeting - from Stephen Fry to international companies to our political elite...
Gordon Brown, Nick Clegg, Boris Johnson, Alastair Campbell are among the famous faces Twittering. There’s even a web site, Tweetminster, to co-ordinate our politicians’ online offerings.
However, talking on Twitter is about as private as leaving your microphone on during a live feed, so you need to be careful what you say at all times.
Welsh international rugby player, Jonathan Thomas, was forced to apologise after posting a homophobic comment on Twitter about gay referee, Nigel Owens.
Thomas later removed what he described as ‘childish banter’, ruefully commenting that he would be “much more conscious of distinguishing between private jokes and what can be said in a public forum in future.”
Twitter has also had numerous cases of public figures having their names appropriated by impostors.
At the other end of the spectrum, celebrities such as Britney Spears and Hugh Jackman have been caught out because their Twitter posts have turned out to have been penned by a publicist, not the stars themselves.
And from a corporate perspective, getting hacked is potentially damaging to the business’s image. A number of examples show how social media can be abused by people simply making mischief.
Confectionary company, Skittles, recently built a site that used social media channels as their site content - this was a brave and supremely innovative move on their part. However, it led to abuse with people posting scurrilous messages and simply adding the Skittles hashtag so that the unedited content was pulled through directly to the Skittles site.
This example of media subversion provided a serious lesson for brands using social media channels to promote themselves.
In a technically savvy age, it’s easy for the mischief makers to spot a weakness like the one Skittles revealed and exploit it to the full. So, while social media can expose your brand to a new audience, it might not always do so in the manner in which you intended.
On a more mundane level, you can alienate your audience with your social media content, simply because it isn’t of a high enough calibre. If you are writing an online piece, you have to take the time to craft something that is witty, relevant, incisive and punchy.
For a business, social media isn't simply about self-promotion, it’s about creating relationships. Therefore you have to ensure that the material you are posting genuinely speaks to your audience.
While you obviously need to promote your product or brand, you cannot blatantly do so all the time or your audience will switch off. Social media has to add value for your target audience, so you need to provide links to industry news, pass on interesting and relevant information, give advice.
If you provide interesting and worthwhile information, you will develop a following, and your brand will be promoted as an inevitable by-product of this.
The key with social media is that your audience rules, if you bear this in mind at all times, at least some of the pitfalls can be side-stepped.
Howard Scott
Digital Marketing Director, Sequence