3 social media oops you should avoid

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Oops. Oops. Oops.

Recently I came across three social media oops to avoid. I won't call out the offenders, but offer these tips so that you don't make the same mistake.

1. Link your social media buttons to the right place. A website for a major hospital has prominent "follow us" buttons for Facebook and Twitter, but both link to the main pages for Facebook and Twitter — not the hospital's social media presence. 

Oops.

2. Link to the right account. An email newsletter from a non-profit welcomed us to its new e-newsletter (nice enough!) and also suggested we follow them on Facebook. Great idea, but the link took us to the personal page and profile of the newsletter editor. Not exactly what was intended.

Oops.

3. Reply and message carefully. A corporate Twitter account recently posted what was clearly meant to be a direct message — with a very sensitive internal phone number — on its public timeline. Better not to trust Twitter or Facebook for that kind of information.

Oops.