How You Can Bounce Back From You Social Media Mistakes

From spelling mistakes to posting irrelevant content, social media blunders have been around since the days of Myspace, affecting both individuals and business alike and causing much embarrassment along the way. 

While you should always aim to check over your content before you post it, mistakes can still happen and often things something can still slip through the cracks, which is why it’s so important that you know exactly what to do if things happen to go wrong, allowing you to get your social media strategy back on track!

With that let’s look at how you and your business can recover from any social media mistakes you might make, no matter how large or small, helping keep your business looking professional and prepared and minimising the potential damage to your brand.  

Acknowledge The Fail Quickly

These days social media audiences want a transparency from a business, they expect businesses to be open about what might be happening around their business and this doesn’t stop at just the good parts. Even when things go wrong your customers will want to know, which is why you should aim to acknowledge any mistakes you might have made, from a rogue post to a simple spelling mistake. 

If you mess up, people are going to realise, so what better way to respond than to acknowledge it yourself, even if you aren’t sure what’s happening, tell people you know there is a problem and you’re looking into what it might be. Acknowledging the situation allows you to take control of the situation, showing you have control and are looking to resolve it.  

Always Apologise 

It goes without saying that if you say or do something which offends or disadvantages other people then you should apologise. These days people can and will make a record of your mistakes and if you sit back and try and let it pass, it’s not going to look for your brand. No need to be stubborn, no need to avoid responsibility, if people are upset by your mistake then it’s important you own it, apologise and aim to rectify the situation. 

It’s also a good idea to make sure your apology is sincere, it’s very telling when a brand doesn’t think they’ve done anything wrong and are only looking to make people stop talking about them. Instead offer an honest apology, your audience will gain more respect for your brand for doing so.  

Learn From It

If your business has made any kind of mistake it can be easy to wait for it to blow over, forget about it and then never speak of it again, however this isn’t the attitude you should have. Online your mistakes don’t go away, even if you’ve deleted posts, changed names or created new accounts and it’s not uncommon to see brand fails screenshotted and posted elsewhere, which is why you need to open to address any mistakes you’ve made. 

It’s important to remember any mistakes you’ve made on social media and learn from them, look at what you might have done wrong and understand what you can do in the future in order to avoid making the same error. Addressing these mistakes also allows you to share your experiences, helping other avoid similar errors in their social media strategies. 

When something goes wrong in any aspect of your business, including your social media activities it can be tempting to throw in the towel or scale back, however this is no way to recover from your failings. Instead you need to stick with it, experience the backlash, speak to your audience about what has happened and deal with it in a positive manner, allowing you to recover in a shorter amount of time and helping your brand learn to provide an even better level of engagement in the future.