The world of social media is a busy, bustling place! From Twitter to Facebook to LinkedIn to Instagram there is a lot of information constantly being shared...which leaves a lot of room for mistakes in the content you're sharing! Just the nature alone of social media itself being an easy avenue to share real-time, quick information can lead to mix-ups, mistakes, and sometimes poor judgment.

We're the first ones to admit that we're not always perfect! So we wanted to put together a few examples of social media mistakes and lessons we have learned over the years. In the end, these mistakes weren't the end of the world, and they made for a good story and more importantly, a learning lesson. Has your practice made any social media mistakes that you've learned from?

Mistakes We've Learned From Over the Years on Social Media

Mistake #1: Posting links to articles with inappropriate comments

As marketers we spend a lot of time online doing research and finding inspiration. When doing this we sometimes find funny articles that we want to share with our readers to give them a laugh. During the Summer Olympics in 2012 we posted an article on Twitter about funny faces that Olympic divers make. Unfortunately we didn't notice until after posting (and it being pointed out by someone else), that viewers of the original article were posting highly inappropriate comments about the photos. 

Lesson Learned: Be aware of the sources you use

While we didn't directly post or say anything offensive, it reminded us to be aware of the sources that we are using for entertainment and information, and if comments can be made by anyone and are unmonitored to make a note of it to our viewers, or avoid posting the article at all. The last thing that we would want is for our readers to pull up an article on a computer in their eyecare practice, that we posted, that could have language that makes readers uncomfortable.

Mistake #2: Posting a personal tweet on the company's social accounts

If you manage your eyecare practice's social accounts, you probably access your company page through your personal page, making it very easy to switch between the two. That being said, it can be an easy mistake to post a personal message to your company page on accident. We've done that before. And in our case, the personal tweet wasn't inappropriate, it was just out of context, irrelevant, and probably confusing to our followers.

Lesson Learned: Pay attention, apologize, and be able to laugh at yourself

First things first, make sure that the people who have access to your social accounts are always aware of what they are posting and how easy is can be to make this mistake! If a tweet or post does go out, depending on the situation and context of the post, you can handle it a few different ways. One solution could be to delete the tweet and apologize for the confusion, while another could be to make light of the situation and make fun of yourself while apologizing about the mistake.

Mistake #3: Insensitive posts about current events

Part of being a good marketer is being able to relate your products and services to current events making them more relevant to customers. But, often times this line can be crossed. There are a few examples of this in regards to Hurriance Sandy. In one instance, American Apparel emailed customers about a Hurricane Sandy 20% off sale promoting the code, "SANDYSALE" in online check out, available only to states being affected by the storm.

Lesson Learned: When in doubt, don't do it

This storm was affecting thousands and thousands of people, in a bad way. This was a time to make sure that everyone was staying safe from the storm...not shopping for deals on your website. While there are also examples of times when companies dominated social media marketing tied to current events (Oreos during the black out at the Super Bowl, anyone?), if there is ever any doubt in your mind whether you should be tying your marketing to a current event, you probably shouldn't.

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