The Biggest Social Media Mistakes That Could Get You Banned

If you’re online, your business is probably on popular social media sites. It’s an important part of online marketing. You most likely have a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Google +, and maybe even Pinterest.  However, there are rules to these social media sites and if you are unknowingly breaking them, you could get banned. Here are the biggest social media mistakes that could get you banned.

Facebook
Having a cover photo with calls-to-action. Including promotions, requests to share the photo or ‘Like’ your page , contact your business. Running promotions or contests outside of a Facebook app. Facebook wants you to run any contests or promotions using an official Facebook app or canvas page. Posting copyrighted content. As with any social media site, you should be posting copyright-free content.

Twitter
Repeatedly posting the same thing over and over. Don’t tweet the same thing or links over and over again. This will only hurt you. Misusing hashtags Using a hashtag or trending topic with an unrelated tweet just to get seen could annoy followers and get you banned. Using trademarked usernames. If your competitors trademarked the name, you can’t use it as a Twitter handle. Twitter can reclaim it and give you the boot from the site.

LinkedIn Connecting with people you don’t know. LinkedIn, being a more serious business-to-business platform, requires you to know the people you are connecting with. Putting links where they don’t belong. There’s plenty of room in your profile for links. Don’t put a link in the ‘Name’ slot for example.

Google + Keyword stuffing. Because it’s Google and so closely related to search, you can be penalized for over stuffing updates with keywords. Adding too many to circles at a time. Aggressively adding and deleting of people to circles can be a bad thing. Marketing regulated products. You can’t use Google+  to market this industry, including alcohol, tobacco, medical devices, fireworks, pharmaceuticals, etc.

Pinterest Using another company name. If you get caught using another company’s name for your account and are not authorized to act on the behalf of the company, you could get banned. If you’re banned from Pinterest, you can no longer make another account with them. Spamming in the comments. As with any social media site, Pinterest doesn’t like spam. Automating your Pinterest actions. Everything you do on Pinterest, pinning, commenting, re-pinning, must be done manually. You cannot use an automated service to post anything.

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