Within the ‘best practice’ advice that is available for businesses adopting social media, there is a fair amount of  ’don’ts’. Most of these are obvious in terms of misrepresentation of the brand. Classic cases like handing over your entire social strategy to someone who popped in for a couple of weeks work experience and shared their social exploits on your social channels, or at a less extreme level, just lack of commitment from those tasked with spreading the social message across the board.

But there are some annoying tendencies that while not being actively harmful, can make your social presence less effective and ultimately, rather annoying, to the customers that you are trying to make your online social community.  Here’s five characters you’d rather not meet on your social channels:

1) Desperate Dan. Dan loves numbers. He loves big numbers. He’s not really interested in being a member of your community; he’s interested in adding your community to his list. Initially you’ll be flattered. He’s followed you and added you to lists. He’s favourited your tweets. He’s joined the same groups as you in Linkedin. He’s liking and loving everything you put up on Facebook. Then the truth dawns. It’s not you he wants. It’s the connections you have that will make Dan bigger and better. You’re just a number to him.

How to avoid: You can’t stop him following you, but watch how he engages with other members of your network. And don’t accept invitations to get any closer to someone who isn’t a target for your business community and doesn’t really seem to have a reason to be engaged with you.

2) Ronnie Retweeter. Ronnie posted something interesting on Twitter once and you thought they’d be worth following. Then you realised that they actually generate very little original content. They are like a search engine on steroids where anything vaguely relevant gets instantly retweeted. It might help your Klout score because you’ll be retweeted too, but it’s not really the start of a meaningful engagement.

How to avoid. Pop them into a separate list and leave them to retweet away, safely separated from your main timeline of useful content. To be fair to Ronnie Retweeter, he is often an early stage social sort and using retweets to bed down into the social space. Keep an eye on him to see if he emerges from this phase. Note – many don’t – they’re often the ones who will ‘try Twitter but not see what the fuss was about’.

3) Penny Picky. Penny likes to engage with you to find fault. She’ll scour every blog post in the hope of having an opportunity to correct you and then share the hilarious error with her followers. What you will notice about Penny is that she rarely makes a positive posting – on any channel. Highlight a link to your site and she’ll accuse you of spamming the social waves; fail to put a link in and she’ll question the point of the post.

How to avoid. Penny is in most communities online. Pushed too far, she tends to troll status, but in her basic incarnation she is fairly harmless, but a little annoying. Be sure to respond positively to her – thank her for pointing out the missing link, or for her interesting feedback. Do not give her the opportunity to say that you didn’t respond. But then, that advice goes for anyone you’re interacting with socially. Always respond.

4) Copycat Kate. Kate loves you. She reproduces everything you do. Unfortunately she doesn’t always acknowledge that you are the original author. You see your blog post on her site. You see that she’s retweeted your links, without the courtesy of  an RT or even a via. She may be an acolyte but she is not going to be driving business to you. Rather she’s hoping that some of your social success will rub off. Kate has some similarities with Dan as gaining numbers and seeming to be popular are more important than membership of your social community.

How to avoid: Let Kate know you’re on to her. Thank her for republishing, for retweeting, for being so active in the forums that you are in. She may be shameless, but at least her followers will start to realise what’s original, and who it’s from.

5) Naughty Nigel. Nigel likes to speak on your behalf. He pops up in your Facebook pages to explain what you’re really talking about. He’ll respond to any mentions of you with suggested actions – like an unofficial customer services social rep, but rarely with any means to resolve an issue. As a result he can seem to be a little closer to your brand than you’d like and you’re not really sure of his motives.

How to avoid. Rather than avoiding Nigel, try to understand him. He may actually be trying to impress. His constant forays into your feeds might be the first signs that he’s genuinely interested in your business and sees himself as part of it. Sending his cv might be the obvious next step. If however, he is naughty and negative then Nigel probably needs blocking from your main platforms. So identify Nigel as either a misguided advocate, or as a disgruntled contact and act accordingly.

I’m sure there are more – why don’t you let us know the sort of people who annoy you on social media and why they may impact on your business’s social media efforts? And if you’d like some help in making sure you become a good social marketing business, why not submit a brief to our experienced creatives and agencies?