The Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, is the latest organization to have to issue a public apology for an egregious tweet by an intern or staff member. While it’s hard to believe that any adult would think it was okay to tell Amnesty International to “suck it” while writing on behalf of a serious, professional organization, this kind of thing seems to happen again and again.

Let’s face it — social media is still a big experiment with an unpredictable ROI. Yet most companies and organizations feel, on some level, that they have to be in the game. If you don’t have a social media platform, you’re ceding that space and whatever connections and interactions it offers to someone else. If you do use social media and do it thoughtfully and well, you gain visibility at the least and new connections at best.

Too often, though, organizations abdicate their social media voice to interns or entry-level staff, assuming that their youth gives them some magical skills in tweeting, posting, or pinning that no one else has. With no immersion in the brand or understanding of the audience, they jump in without a clearly defined communications strategy or respect for the organization’s history or identity. At best, they’re without guidelines. At worst, it all goes wrong; apologies must be issued and damage controlled.

If your feelings about social media are unclear or misguided, you might end up alienating people who’ve been loyal to you. You’ve heard of too much information? I follow many museums, nonprofits, and businesses on Facebook (more than 800 FB pages, last time I checked) and I can’t tell you how many of those have lost some or all of my respect by posting too much junk — silly games and contests, pointless questions or quotes or photos that seem to have no purpose other than trying to push their way up the algorithm, poorly spelled or grammatically incorrect text, repetitive Hootsuite blasts, excessive hashtags. I know that many of these organizations have a demographic that is urban, educated, sophisticated, and eager to participate in the best that these institutions have to offer, not dumbed-down, juvenile nonsense.

Sometimes it’s just a marketing misstep. I follow a wonderful museum that installed an interactive textile studies room. It’s gorgeous and compelling and a rich resource for scholars and enthusiasts, but I only know that because I found myself there accidentally on a visit to the museum. I’d seen Facebook posts about the room, but they gave the impression of a family playroom for DIY crafts. I don’t know who made the decision to represent it that way, but I’m guessing that they haven’t looked at what their members want from them.

How do you avoid losing real existing customers in the quest for virtual new ones, or worse, having to issue humble apologies?

• It’s fine to experiment, but do it strategically. Define what you’re going to try and follow the feedback closely. Give it a reasonable trial period. Keep what works. Take it seriously but not too seriously. If you want to try paying for sponsored or boosted posts, start small with focused expectations and see what happens.
• Set high standards and act with integrity. Be professional, know who you are, and assign social media to responsible people who love to research, read, write, and connect dots, regardless of age. It’s about content, not SEOs or keywords or bad publicity as a way of getting seen. Most of us should not be telling our peers to suck it. Social media is loaded with some horrible stuff. You don’t have to be a part of that. Lift up the quality of content on the Internet and make your posts worth reading.
• Be true to your identity. If you’re a serious or scholarly organization, you don’t have to be stodgy all the time — you can have fun and be dynamic and innovative. But don’t stoop to stupid. Represent your projects and initiatives accurately. Have opinions, but give people room to disagree.
• Less is more. If you’re flooding people’s feeds, take a break or pull back. Track the times and types of posts that get good feedback (pay attention to quality of comments and shares as well as quantity of likes) and do more of that, less of something else.
• Don’t fall for every meme. Trends reach a point of diminishing returns pretty fast online. You don’t need to post six nostalgic photos on Throwback Thursday, complete with too many hashtags, every week, week after week. Do it judiciously, when you have something great to share.
• Squash hyperbole. Is every single thing you post awesome, amazing, stunning? You’re exhausting me. Tell me why it’s amazing, not just that it is — because the bar for amazing is pretty low online. 
  
• Don’t limit social media responsibilities to the youngest on the team. Facebook users are all ages, and the average age is trending up. Know who you’re talking to and find people who will engage with them to write posts. Share interesting things, not just the same things others are sharing.
• You don’t have to do everything. Each social media format serves a different audience in a different way. Facebook is conversational, Twitter is timely, Flickr is all visual. If you’re publishing videos, Vimeo and YouTube each have a completely different look and feel. Design a social media portfolio that’s right for you. And don’t blast everything you post to every format in exactly the same way. It’s a timesaver, but what you save in time you might lose in goodwill — it can be annoying if you’re a heavy poster.
• Credit where it’s due. Don’t repost links without a hat tip to the source who researched, found, and posted it for you to find and enjoy.

Thanks for reading! ~ Elaine