Businesses use social media for a host of different reasons. Some people tap into social channels as a way of sharing content, whereas others prefer to use it to build relationships with their customers. One of the biggest benefits of social media is the fact that it can enhance your credibility, demonstrating your leadership on an important topic, and helping you to earn industry trust.

The problem is, just as social media can enhance your credibility, it also has the power to damage it, too. Here are just some of the things that could ruin your reputation on any social channel.

1. Only Linking To Branded/Promotional Content

There’s nothing wrong with using your social channel to share company information and blogs. However, if you don’t share anything but branded content, then you’re going to end up losing the respect of customers who don’t want to be sold to all the time. Try to aim for a solid balance between curated content and branded content for all your channels.

2. Getting Followers Through Shady Practices

When you first start posting on social media, it’s tempting to do anything necessary to improve your follower count. After all, the more followers your business has, the more impressive it will look. Unfortunately, if you try to buy your followers instead of earning them, customers will quickly pick up on your deception.

No matter how tempting it is to take the “easy option”, avoid buying your followers at all costs. Instead, work with a social media manager on organically growing your online presence. You can do this by sharing valuable, relevant content with your customers on a regular basis.

3. Trying To Keep Everyone Happy

It’s easy to fall into the habit of trying to please everyone when you’re running your own social media profiles for business purposes. After all, you don’t want to lose any potential customers that might come your way. Unfortunately, taking too broad of an approach to your social efforts could mean that you end up interacting with a lot of prospects, but never truly engaging any of them.

Speak to your social media manager about how you can refine your social media efforts to ensure that you’re focusing your messages toward the people most likely to buy from your brand. It may even be helpful to design a buyer persona before you get active on social media.

If you want to make sure you maintain your credibility on social media, make sure that you work with the experts. Click here to find out why you should hire a social media manage for your business.