Five Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

Social media is the place to be now, and many successful MLM and network marketing entrepreneurs are building their brand and reputation using social media marketing.

It’s important to study the basics and learn how to present yourself correctly. It isn’t necessary to be perfect, and you do want to let the real “you” shine out, but at the same time you’re a professional and you’re in business. It makes sense to learn and observe the “best practices” for social media marketing that is focused on business networking.

Here are five social media marketing mistakes that can affect your brand and how potential business associates see you. Get these right and you’re off to a good start!

Avoid…

Not Understanding What You Want to Accomplish

As a network marketer, your objective in social media is obviously to make friends and build relationships. You will be looking to meet like minded friends who might have an interest (now or long-term) in working with you. It’s important to identify social communities where people that would typically be interested in your products and opportunity would gather.

If your opportunity is based around a health or fitness product, look for communities and groups focused on those interests. I know this sounds obvious, but many networkers just jump into Facebook, for example, and never really identify and frequent the groups that their target market will be attracted to.

Having an Incomplete Social Media Profile

Your profile should always include a nice, professional picture of you along with some details about your interests and your business. You want as many people as possible to be able to find common ground with you. Be sure to include links to your opportunity site or blog.

I get friend requests from people on Facebook from time to time who have so little in their profile that I can’t even figure out why they want to be my friend. Some don’t have their own photo, but instead some other sort of image or avatar. I usually just ignore these requests, and most business people that you want to network with will also.

Working Without Your Own Website or Blog

If you’re just getting started with your network marketing business online, it’s tempting to use a Blogger blog or your company’s replicated site in your profile. If you’re serious about social media marketing, and want to attract others of like mind, you really need to have your own blog. On your own domain name.

A huge reason for this is control. If you use one of the free blog services, you can spend a lot of time building it up and then potentially lose it overnight. Many of the free blog services don’t really care for home business type blogs anyway, and all it takes is someone reporting your content as spam or inappropriate and you can lose all your work.

If you use your company’s replicated site, you look like thousands of others with the same exact site. If you should decide to pursue a different opportunity for whatever reason, then you have nothing. Get your own blog, on your own domain, and brand yourself.

Going Over the Top with Your Personal Life

It’s good to show some glimpses into your personal non-business life, just be careful not to carry it to an extreme. Think of what you might share if you walked into a room of business professionals that you don’t know well. Especially in network marketing, people want to know a bit about you outside your business face, but keep it reasonable and conservative.

Arguments and Debates on Controversial Topics

This last social media marketing mistake I want to point out isn’t one I see very often among online network marketers, but it does happen. You’re online working to build your personal brand as a professional networker. If you are “out there”, people will Google your name to find out more about you. If they find that you are engaging in debates and arguments over controversial and emotional topics (politics and religion come to mind), it might lessen your appeal to them as a business partner. I’m not saying don’t express yourself, but if your goal is to build a professional and attractive presence online, you have to think about this.

Did you get some value from this post? If you did, I would really appreciate you sharing it with others! And, your comments are welcome below!

Got a minute? Take a look at what’s working in an online business for me...

If you have a home business and are happy, that's good. If you are looking for the right opportunity, the right mentor, and something you can build online, I would enjoy the opportunity to share what I'm doing. Click here and let’s explore the possibilities.