The worst-ever advice about social media

We asked some pros how you can undermine your digital communications. Here are their top (or bottom) 10 ‘tips.’

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Direct-message a canned welcome note to everyone who follows you. Your followers will feel special, and you’ll look like a pro because you figured out the auto-reply thingy, right?

Actually, no.

When we went trolling for the worst social media advice, Alexandra Dao, community manager of the city transit guide HopStop.com, quickly mentioned the instructions she sees in blogs telling how to send auto-DMs.

“Auto-DMs are widely considered spam, and personally I’ll unfollow someone if I receive one,” Dao says.

The world is awash in awful social media advice, as iMedia Connection demonstrates in an article on the topic. One takeaway: People don’t want to get social with your brand of toilet bowl cleaner.

In order to help you undermine your own messaging, we’ve asked communicators, professors and others to share the worst social media advice they have encountered. Here are some of their thoughts on what not to do:

1. Don’t bother drawing up a social media policy.

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