What is the biggest mistake you often see businesses make concerning social media?

John V, disagree for the following reasons:

1. Use of SM is increasing, penetrating among older users.
2. Most SMB (B2C obviously) are people businesses.
3. People of all ages trust the opinions of "people like me" more than they trust commercial information. This trust in "people like me" has actually risen over the last five years steadily.
4. The conclusion is that, for many SMB, having an authentic social media presence that allows customers and potential customers to validate the brand's value(s) is a trust-building effort.
5. Then the question remains, how does trust correlate with purchase intent, repurchase intent, and word-of-mouth behaviors? Not a gut answer here, but based on statistics in the marketplace for a given sector, product, or service?

I think you'd have to argue against point 5, given that points 1-4 are (in my humble opinion) Pretty Darn Strong. :)

I'm actually going to let others come on and add to this, but there are a couple common themes:

1. Lack of Commitment -- you can't go half-way, you have to go all-in with social media.
2. Over-selling -- many people can't resist but social media is won by those that create valuable non-salesy materials for their followers.

This is an easy one. It's a lack of follow-through. When they don't see immediate results, they stop blogging, tweeting, participating, etc. This most often happens in smaller companies when it's nobody's express responsibility to execute on social media. Companies, no matter their size, need to commit and put their money where their mouth is. Whether they make it a staff member's full-time job, or a part-time job for someone in Marketing, or they outsource to an agency; social media (like all of Marketing) is a process. It should be worked on every day, and expect it to take time (maybe months) before you start seeing results. That said, once you reach a tipping point, the ROI is impressive.

Early on, one mistake I made was spending too much time trying to influence influencers. I would say I have gotten better as I became aware of my "cash flow" problem, but it seems over the years the problem has gotten worse. For example, on Twitter™ I think it has reached epidemic proportions. Follow any #hashtag and you can see its symptoms and most #ff recommendations have no value because they don't explain the value of the person being recommended. Without a reason for recommendation #FF has turned into an ego stroker. I know, it's all about the people and your only as good as your network, but from my personal experience better balance in the selling/closing vs. editorializing was required (there is a thing of too much information).

Rebel, totally agree. The problem is largely an asymmetry problem: it's easy to broadcast one message to many, but it's hard to receive many messages (from your audiences) and translate them into understanding within the organization.

There's good news, though. If the one-to-one connection between someone who loves the brand (including, presumably, employees) and someone outside of that brand-love wall is authentic, sincere, and relevant, then the increasing returns effect can still be won by a company. What you're missing in this scenario is real learning by the company, though. I think Apple in the past has relied in part on fan-boy word of mouth to create increasing returns, but has not had a strong culture of systematically listening at "listening posts" and taking that information into decision-making in a thoughtful and institutionalized way. It would be interesting to see what the mobile me and antenna issues have done to transform listening and learning processes at the company.

I disagree with previous contributors. For most businesses (not all I admit, but currently in SM's evolution, the vast majority), the biggest mistake is thinking it's going to be a better investment of time and money than more traditional marketing channels.

Party pooper I know : (

I think the biggest mistakes companies make include -

1. They forget about being social and stick to being promotional.

2. They have mis-matched expectations from the medium, it is very unlike your other traditional marketing channels and hence requires a different kind of understanding, approach and measurement.

John, Merlin and Jinan, interesting perspectives. John, I find it hard to believe that you disagree in totality with the 5 previous posters. I think they all had some valid points. But in general, I agree with you. The old ways have validity because some of us riding a cusp, others are not. My kids, 23, 22, 21 and 18 year old grew up in a totally different world. Being "out there" and "around here" is part of their requirements and companies are selling something to them online and offline.

Speaking of the old ways, Friday started catalog season, some brands need to reevaluate the carpet bomb catalog technique. I think that is one process and activity that has wore out its usefulness.

Another is promoting companies who are clients of yours over and over and without disclosing in tweet.