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Social media spam. We’ve all seen it, and most of us probably know people who are social media spammers. It’s annoying, and it totally ruins the social media experience for people connected to the spammer.

The thing I don’t get about social media spam is the entire concept is so anti-social media that it’s amazing people just don’t get that what they’re doing is stupid and ineffective. But maybe they just don’t realize they’re spamming. It’s possible, right?

If that’s the case, I’ve come up with a brief list of 3 signs you’re a social media spammer. If any of these sounds like you, it’s time to take a hard look at the way you use social media.

1. You only submit your own content. Social media spammers love submitting their content on Digg, ReddIt, Stumbleupon, etc. Unfortunately for them, they don’t realize this is a bad strategy for a couple of reasons. First, if you only submit your own content, these networks will catch on to what you’re doing, and they’ll immediately flag you and your domain as spam. This means your content will never gain much traction on these sites. It’s better to have other people submit your content.

But even if they don’t catch on, your peers will. No one is going to help push your content if you don’t return the favor. If you’re only interested in promoting your own content, you’ll never be able to build a powerful promotional network.

2. You leave meaningless comments on other blogs. This is probably my least favorite type of spam. It’s just so annoying to see people leaving short, meaningless comments for the sake of getting their name out there and dropping a link back to their website. If your comment says “Great post” or “I agree”, you’re going to be seen as a spammer.

Another form of comment spam is to put a keyword in the name field. Your name isn’t “Honda car repair.” This is a cheap way to try to build keyword-rich backlinks, and it reeks of spam.

3. You bombard your followers with direct message advertisements. This type of spam comes in many forms. First, you have the people who send out auto-DMs on Twitter as soon as someone follows them. The auto-DM may welcome the new follower, but it usually has some sort of promotional element to it (e.g. Download my new eBook by clicking this link!).

On Facebook, event spam has started to get out of control. Companies are abusing these e-vites by sending them far too often and using them like traditional advertisements. If you insist on sending out event notifications, make sure you send it to people who are truly interested in the event, and don’t abuse the e-vite by sending it far too often.

What are some other things social media spammers do that drive you nuts?

It seems like any time we talk about Twitter, we focus on the reasons to use it. Conversations are always about the benefits, never about potential drawbacks or reasons not to use Twitter. Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m definitely a firm believer that Twitter can be a powerful tool for increasing brand awareness, driving web traffic, generating leads, building trust with consumers and more, but I don’t think Twitter is right for every business.
Here are 3 reasons NOT to use Twitter for your business.

1. Your target audience doesn’t Tweet—While Twitter attracts a diverse crowd, the average user is somewhere in his early to mid 30s. Older users have been slow to adopt Twitter, instead preferring LinkedIn and even Facebook. What does this mean for you? It means there’s a chance your target audience doesn’t really use Twitter.

It’s time to dig up that business plan you stuffed away in some filing cabinet to look at the info about your target demographic. How old are they? How often do they use the internet and social networking? Are they using smart phones to stay mobile?

And if for some reason you don’t know who your target audience is (shame on you), check out this post for tips on identifying your target market.

2. You don’t have time to Tweet—You might already have quite a bit on your plate as it is. Tweeting takes time. It’s not just dropping an update here or there. Being successful with Twitter requires finding the time to interact with your followers and to respond to @replies and direct messages. Engagement is the key.

So, before you sign up on Twitter, you need to ask yourself:

• Do I really have time to Tweet?
• How much time can I realistically devote to Tweeting each day?
• Should someone else handle the company Twitter account?

On that note, check out these tips for increasing your social media productivity.

3. You don’t have a plan or goals—If you’re using Twitter for marketing purposes, you need to have a plan and clearly defined goals. This means figuring out:
• What do I want to accomplish with Twitter?
• How will I measure my results?
• How long will I give myself to reach certain benchmarks and goals?

If you don’t have any goals, then there might not be any point into creating a Twitter account for your business. You’ll just be blindly Tweeting away without a purpose.

There’s a great post on Mashable about creating a social media plan that I highly recommend checking out.

What are some other reasons businesses shouldn’t use Twitter?

Are you following too many people on Twitter? If you answered “yes”, go ahead and jump down to the second half of this article. If you said “I don’t know”, I can help you answer that question. Here are 5 common signs you’re following too many people on Twitter.

1. You can’t keep up with your Twitter feed—If you’re getting dozens of Tweets every minute, there’s just no way you can keep up with all of them. It’d be a full-time job. As a result, you end up missing out on the important Tweets you really care about. If you’re unable to keep up with the people you’re following, it’s time to trim down the list.
2. You only really pay attention to Tweets from a select group of people—Do you find yourself looking past a lot of Tweets just to find certain followers you’re really interested in? That’s a telling sign that you aren’t really interested in what most of your followers have to say. So, why are you even following them?
3. You haven’t interacted with most of the people you’re following—Isn’t the whole point of Twitter to interact with one another? If you have a bunch of people you’re following that you’ve never once interacted with, that probably means you aren’t interested in what they have to say (and vice versa), so you probably don’t have any real reason to follow them.
4. There are several people you’re following that you know nothing about—I’m following quite a few people, but I can go through that list and tell you something about each one of them. Can you do the same?
5. You follow back everyone who follows you—Just because someone is interested in what you have to say doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll be interested in what they have to say. So, don’t automatically follow back everyone who follows you.

How To Trim Down Your List

So, you’re following too many people. Good news: Trimming down your list is pretty easy. Just follow these simple tips.

• Stop automatically following someone back because they follow you—The first thing you need to do is to make sure you don’t worsen the problem. Immediately stop following people back just because they follow you. Only follow someone if you have a good reason for doing so.
• Get rid of the people who you never interact with—Those people you never talk to or even pay attention to? Cut them. They serve no purpose.
• Unfollow the constant self-promoter—If you’re following someone who only Tweets links back to their blog or sales pages, ditch them. They aren’t adding any value to your Twitter experience.
• Cut inactive users—Sure, they aren’t clogging up your timeline, but there’s no point in following people who never Tweet. I’ve been told that MyCleenr is a great tool for identifying inactive users you’re following, but I’ve never personally used it. Can anyone verify if this tool is truly useful?

How do you keep from following to many people on Twitter? What criteria do you use to decide if you’re going to follow someone? Share your thoughts by leaving a comment.

Recently, a study by Morse found that a lack of productivity due to social media is costing UK businesses about $2.25 billion. Regardless of whether or not these numbers are skewed, it’s no secret that social media has a tendency to rob your time, making it more difficult for you to get important tasks done.

Thankfully, there are many things you can do to increase your productivity. From using social media tools to Tweeting on the go from your phone, being productive with social media really isn’t that hard. I’ve come up with 4 more easy tips you can put into practice right now to boost your social media productivity.

• Set goals—Goals give you direction. They provide something for you to work toward with your social media usage, so that you can measure your results. Make sure the goals you set align with your overall marketing goals for growing your business.

Your social media goals could be to:

•  
  • Increase the number of positive mentions of your company
  • Build more back links to your website
  • Improve customer retention
  • Build brand awareness so people know who you are

• Have a plan—Once you have some goals in place, it’s time to set a plan for making these goals a reality. For example, if you want to get more back links, you need to write linkbait-style blog posts and promote them on Twitter, Facebook, and social voting sites.

All of your social media usage should be devoted to helping you achieve those goals. Anything else is a waste of time. So, stick to the plan so you can stay productive.

• Create a schedule—It might seem a bit restricting, but scheduling time for your social media use keeps you focused and on track. For example, if you know you have a block of 15 minutes to devote to promoting your blog, you’ll focus on this task, rather than killing time chatting on Facebook or Twitter. Set a schedule and stick to it!

• Get help—Don’t be a hero. Ask for help with achieving your social media goals. This could mean getting employees to contribute to your blog. It could also mean soliciting guest posts. Or you could hire a ghost blogger to blog and Tweet under your name. This would free you up to work on your normal daily tasks while letting an expert do all the dirty work.

How do you stay productive while still being a social media junkie? Share your best tips in the replies.

Being a sports enthusiast and someone whose career revolves around social media, it’s rare that I get to combine these 2 passions. But when I heard that ESPN suspended sports writer Bill Simmons from using Twitter for 2 weeks due to his violation of the company’s social media policy, I knew I had to learn more about this story. By the way, I wrote about creating a social media policy for your company a few weeks ago, so check it out if you haven’t already.

Now, we all know that Twitter can be a double-edged sword for promoting your company. On one hand, it allows you to build relationships with your target audience by letting down your guard and showcasing your personality. On the other hand, Twitter opens up the door to the nasty possibility that you or an employee will cross the line by saying something that could damage your reputation.

This brings us to Bill Simmons. Simmons regularly writes for ESPN.com, and you can often find him getting interviewed on any number of ESPN TV shows or radio programs. He’s also very active on Twitter. In fact, he has over 1,000,000 followers.

Simmons’ Twitter troubles began when he sent out an angry Tweet directed at radio station WEEI, a partner of ESPN. Simmons’ Tweet read, “Hey WEEI: You were wrong, I did a Boston interview today. With your competition. Rather give them ratings over deceitful scumbags like you.” Needless to say, ESPN didn’t like one of their employees calling their partner “scumbags.”

Not long after this Tweet was sent out, ESPN suspended Simmons from using Twitter for 2 weeks. Editor-in-chief of ESPN.com Rob King commented on the suspension saying:

“We have internal guidelines designed to inform how we discuss the topic of sports media. These guidelines are important us, because they help maintain the credibility with which ESPN operates.

While it’s unfortunate — and sometimes painful — that not everyone outside of ESPN chooses to play by such rules, we choose to hold ourselves to higher standards. Regardless of the provocation, Bill’s communication regarding WEEI fell short of those standards. So we’ve taken appropriate measures.”

Read King’s entire post On Tweeting Responsibly for more of his insight into the suspension.

So, all of this begs the question: How would you have handled the situation if you were an ESPN executive? Also, does your company have a social media policy? Share your thoughts in the replies.