3 Deadly Mistakes Uncovered in Social Media

Social media can become your best friend or your worst enemy. If you are trying to successfully build your personal brand, try avoiding these five common mistakes which can damage your online reputation or lower your personal google search rank.

1. Not claiming your LinkedIn profile URL

LinkedIn has a feature that lets users customize their profile’s url or vanity url. In other words, you have the capability of owning your own unique web address on LinkedIn.

Why is this important you may ask?

By customizing your URL, your profile page will become easier to remember, easier find, and give it a professional look and feel. LinkedIn gives every user a default web address with a bunch of random numbers, dashes, and words that look like this, www.linkedin.com/pub/chris-cannon/4b/b17/802/. As you can see, this domain can be confusing and give you a headache. Do yourself a favor and claim your domain today. Below is a great video instruction on how to customize your LinkedIn profile domain. A good example of a customized LinkedIn url would look like this, https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenkrogue.

2. Having me, myself, and I conversations

Believe it or not, nobody likes to be a part of a conversation in which the other person talks non-stop about themselves. This principle directly applies in every social media platform. Talking about your company or personal brand 100% of the time gets boring pretty fast.

A good strategy to follow that will help you avoid sounding selfish and robotic is to show interest in others by applying the 80/20 rule. 80 percent of the content you post should be about somebody else’s content, and 20 percent of the content should be yours. By doing this, you are showing your audience that you are engaged with your connections by talking with them, and not just talking to them.

3. Posting the wrong image sizes or pixelated images

The saying “A picture is worth a thousand words” applies perfectly to social media. The most captivating, informative and viral posts are created with an image. People tend to remember pictures more than words, so if you want to make a good lasting impression online, make sure your pictures are mobile and desktop friendly and aren’t pixelated.

This may sound challenging but there a lot of free tools and charts to help you achieve this that can be found on Google. For example, here is a rule of thumb for Facebook picture sizes as of May 2013:

Facebook Cover Photo: 851 x 315*
Profile Picture Size: 160 x 160 (or up to 180 x 180 to upload)
Custom Tab Image Size: 111 x 74
Facebook Page Post Images: 960 x 960 (or up to 2048 x 2048 to upload)
Link previews: 90 x 90
Ad image size: 100 x 72
Sponsored Story Images: 194 x 139
Milestone or Highlighted Post: 843 x 403
Full Image on a Custom Tab: 810 x 1200

*All of the above measurements are in pixels

As you spend more time in different social media platforms, try to look for ways to improve your profile and keep it up to date.

Photo Credit: Steve 2.0