How To Fix Common Social Media Blunders

October 21, 2014


Melanie ReiffensteinGuest Post by Melanie Reiffenstein. Melanie is the Manager of Brand Communications at JWT Canada, developing communications and media strategies for the agency and its clients.   You can connect with Melanie on LinkedIn or Twitter.

Having worked on the front lines of social media for a considerable amount of time, I see people who are, day in and day out, afraid they are making irreversible mistakes on social. But instead of living in fear, seemingly big booboos can be easily remedied with swift action.

An error in a YouTube video

YouTube does not allow you to change a video once uploaded. But there are ways to fix problems without removing your video and annihilating your view count. Does the problem occur at the beginning or end of your video (like a slate or an incorrect super in the end)? YouTube allows for front and back trimming so you can cut out those problems. Annotations also allow you to control where click thrus occur, so you can lead your audience to new content when you choose. You can also update the thumbnail on the video if it’s not to your liking. Meta problems can be remedied by fixing title, description copy and tags.

Allowing/Disallowing YouTube comments

This one can be tricky. If your comments are turned on and unwanted trolls are creeping your comment section, you can turn off comments and remove any that already exist. This also deletes anything that was replied to. But the move is permanent and comments will not come back if you opt to turn them on again.How To Fix Common Social Media Blunders

A Facebook post gone wrong

Facebook is a handy social tool for blunders. Like Google+, or even a standard blog post, it allows you to edit copy that has been posted by clicking the downwards arrow at the top right of every post. It is best to do this immediately after the error was noticed – proofread posts before and right after they are posted to ensure this is solved in a timely manner. If a post was overlooked, community managers can back date a post to make it appear on a different date.

Death by Tweet

There is no way to edit a tweet once it’s been sent out to the twitterverse. Your best option is to delete it immediately and repost the correct one without any errors to links or without typos. Odds are no one will have seen or noticed the error but, if your following is rather large, you can avoid embarrassment by owning up to it. Say “We were all thumbs in that last tweet”, delete the error, then your next tweet should be the correct one.

A WordPress AutoTweet

Blogs often allow you to automatically generate a tweet from a new post you’ve created as soon as you hit publish. But what if that tweet is too title-focused and not social enough? Within your post, you can select the settings of the tweet and update the content before you hit publish. This ensures that the correct hashtags and language is used for your post before you publish. If you keep forgetting this step, disable this feature so you can be more in control.

Like everything, your comfort level will grow once you become more familiar with the social media platform you’re working on. Dive in and get messy!

Photo: monetarymusings.com


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Melanie Reiffenstein


Melanie is the Manager of Brand Communications at JWT Canada, developing communications and media strategies for the agency and its clients. With a background in social media, she is passionate about connecting brands with consumers.

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