#1. Not creating social media pages for your company.
Be sure to claim and create social media pages for your business on the major social media websites on the Internet. I'm specifically referring to creating a Facebook Business Page, a LinkedIn Company Page, a Google+ Brand Page, a Twitter Business Handle, and a YouTube Business Channel to start.
#2. Using personal profiles instead of company pages.
Make sure you do not set up and use a personal profile as your business page. This is not the right thing to do. Instead, you want to create company pages for your company on each social site. It doesn’t look very professional to use a personal page for a business profile. Plus you will want to keep your personal page for your own personal profile. See the social media company page list in #1 for clear understanding of what types of pages to create.
#3. Weak branding efforts.
If there’s weak or no brand consistency on each of the social media pages and accounts you create, your company does not look very legitimate and this look tends to give off a weak first impression. You want to make sure that all social media pages for your business have a consistent brand that matches your website and your overall business image.
The key areas to focus on for company branding on each social page are cover images and company profile images.
#4. Not optimizing company profiles and accounts.
You want to optimize each social media profile and account so the search engines can properly index the social pages for your business. Ideally, the desired results when a company’s social pages have all been optimized for the search engines, are having these pages show up on a Google or Bing search for the company’s name. This is the ideal situation for your business. So make sure that you have your business’s social profiles completely filled out and optimized for your company name and supporting keyword phrases that make the most sense for your business.
#5. Not active on a consistent basis.
When you showcase activity on a consistent basis on social media [posting updates about your company, interacting on strategic partner pages, etc], this can be a major plus for business visibility. If your business is inactive, your business doesn’t look as credible because there is no activity going on. Remember, you’re always playing with the subconscious mind of your target market.
#6. Only doing push messages.
The previous deadly social media mistake was not posting and being active on a consistent basis. #6 deadly social media mistake is about only doing push messaging on social media company pages. This is because if you’re only posting and not interacting on your strategic partners’ pages, then you look like your don’t care.
That means you need to be liking and sharing or commenting on updates posted by other business pages and/or personal profiles. Being active like this will have a huge benefit and greatly improves the effectiveness of your overall social media strategy. Do everything you can to look like you CARE. This is key!
Brian Horwitz is a co-founder of Online Visibility Pros, a certified digital marketing firm that specializes in online lead generation for home services businesses, trade contractors, construction companies and a handful of a few other select niche markets. OVP gives these businesses the power to leverage the Internet to generate a steady flow of targeted online leads. 
