Every professional has a guilty secret… you know… the shortcuts we take, the bad habits we get into and the corners we cut. It is so engrained in our busy working lives that perhaps we don’t even know we are doing it? Well it’s confession time and I want to start the ball rolling by sharing with you the guilty secrets of a social media manager!
I don’t always read what I’m sharing
I’m busy, I want to share content, the preview looks good so I share it. I don’t always take the necessary 5 minutes to read the entire content that I’m sharing. This is pretty dangerous territory because when you share something you are in essence endorsing it. I recently shared an article on a network only to find out that it was filled with bad language and poor grammar. Basically users on that network (who do read content) were wondering what on earth I was thinking by sharing it.
Resolution– If I don’t have time to read it properly then I don’t share it… simple!
Sometimes I Get Distracted
I love social media and I believe to be successful you need to explore the latest viral trends, topics and conversations and that’s just fine. I do at times however find myself getting distracted by completely irrelevant things. A classic example of this is watching the latest viral video on YouTube… reading the comments… clicking on an interesting link in the comments and before you know it you’re watching a video about endangered penguins that has nothing to do with your job, your initial search or the research you were doing.
Resolution– I came to see a viral video.. I’m watching it and I’m leaving… no more wandering, it’s time to get focused!
Sometimes I forget to adjust urls
To successfully monitor your social media efforts it is entirely necessary to tailor your urls to your campaign. Using Google url builder you can set the source and the medium for your campaign which ensures that you can easily see where your web registrations originated from. In my excitement to share website information I have been known to share links directly from the website onto social media without adjusting the url. Ultimately this is just sad because for the few minutes it takes to change your url your social media efforts will go unnoticed when web traffic is analysed.
Resolution– I now keep a spreadsheet to monitor my tailored urls and the results are so worthwhile that I don’t forget anymore!
We all have guilty secrets but the important thing is to recognise them and implement positive changes to improve the way you work. What are your guilty secrets? Tweet me and let me know!