Ten Ways to Fail on the Biggest Social Media Platforms: Facebook
This is the third in my series of four on the ten ways to fail on the Biggest Social Media Platforms. You can go back and read the ones on Pinterest or Twitter if you’d like. By the way, here’s an excellent article about Five of the Biggest Facebook Mistakes and how to Fix Them.
1. Crosspost from Twitter using hashtags.
Use tons and boatloads of hashtags. People love them! Make up your own private jokes using hashtags. For extra points, use random words. For instance, #SuperCaliFragilisticalSpaceShip. See how random that is? And how long, too?!
2. Steal content
Pretend that the cool article you just found is yours. Steal the post and don’t say where you got it! Deny everything if accused. Don’t forget to remove the artist’s signature off that artwork, too! (This has happened to me more than once, by the way.) After all, if it’s on the Internet, it’s meant to be taken and used!
3. Post when no one’s there
Can’t sleep in the middle of the night? That’s a great time to post! Don’t take advantage of Facebook’s native scheduler. Don’t save that post for later, either.
4. Don’t post at all
Don’t have any opinions ever and don’t “like” or comment on any one else’s posts. That’s a good strategy.
5. Never use images
Plain text rocks! Especially when you’re ranting. Use a lot of run-on sentences so you can go on. And on. In fact, a whole paragraph with no line breaks is the best of all.
6. Don’t reply
When people comment, ignore them. Be mysterious. Be cryptic. But don’t answer any questions or comments.
Ten Ways to Fail on the Biggest Social Media Platforms: Facebook
7. Post and run
Like a hit-and-run accident, a post and run works best when your friends and fans feel like they’ve witnessed a car crash. Post when you only have five minutes left and you’re about to go on vacation. That’s how you appear to be even more mysterious. If you do reply, wait until you’re back from vacation (in two or three weeks).
8. Don’t invite your friends to like your page
They probably wouldn’t like it anyway. Would they? And if you don’t tell them about it, they won’t ever have to know! That will save a lot of work.
9. Don’t have a business page
Post all your business stuff on your personal page. Your friends won’t mind. That’s what friends are for!
10. Make your posts private.
Don’t let anyone see what you’re talking about. You can also have posts where you address just one person.
What failures have you seen on Facebook?
I really do love failures. Here are a few more, in this article from Business to Community, 7 Common Facebook Marketing Mistakes. Without calling anyone out, let me know what really great failures, mistakes, and belly flops you’ve seen on Facebook!
This:
“For extra points, use random words. For instance, #SuperCaliFragilisticalSpaceShip. See how random that is? And how long, too?!”
I think of everything that drives me the craziest.
A runner up is when you comment on someone’s post and it’s totally ignored for weeks or forever.
Hi Bridget,
Thanks for laughing at my joke.
Yesterday, someone replied to something I’d said in January! Wow. I’m pretty sure you could go to the moon and back in less time than that.
Carol
Tha hashtag in Facebook posts bugs me the most…even though I’m somewhat guilty. Schedulers are the culprit, I believe, as posts don’t necessarily translate between mediums. IE, an Instagram post (with hashtags) isn’t a great Facebook post, etc.
Hi Allen,
I believe another culprit could be the automatic reposting from one platform to another. Instagram has shameless hashtags all over, while Facebook does not (and Instagram is owned by FB, too, so FB makes reposting easy, probably).
Thanks for stopping by and commenting. I appreciate it!
Carol
Thank goodness Facebook finally has decent notifications for Pages — that should help quite a bit. My personal pet peve is seeing people pay to boost posts that serve zero purpose. Just random stuff that is not related to them at all. And click baitey titles. I just refuse read anything that starts with “You Won’t Believe What Happens When…”
Hi Heather,
Yes, thank goodness about the notifications. I try to tag other page owners, but don’t always remember to do that. Oh, right, the boosting of random posts doesn’t help people at all. At least if they had traffic going to their own site that would help. I’ve been seeing less of the click bait titles lately. I think Facebook must be cracking down on those.
Thanks for the comment!
Carol