Social media can be an effective marketing tool when used effectively. It was criticized not so long ago that social media would just be a fad. This may not be the case today, but there is still a lot of misinformation about social media that needs to be addressed.
Marketers and business owners should look into these common social media mistakes so you can build the business you deserve, serve more people, and bring more value. By knowing these mistakes, you will be able to counteract the negative and maximize positive results.
- Inconsistent posting activity
Marketers may start off super-motivated in building their social media presence, but that motivation usually runs off quickly.
This may seem to be a typical thing for entrepreneurs simply because they get incredibly busy dealing with the other aspects of their business that they tend to push this aside from their to-do list. However, you need to be able to get into a routine when it comes to your social media efforts as it can exponentially increase your results without an exponential increase in work. You need to dedicate a necessary amount of time for you to brainstorm and create content strategies and engage with followers.
Most importantly, having a consistent social media presence will make customers see that you are equally consistent not just in social media but also in other aspects of your business.
- Posting off-brand content
Creating content can be a challenge for all businesses. However, it's important to remain informative, entertaining, and connected to your brand. Rules vary from platform to platform, and even from brand to brand, but the basic concept is that it doesn’t need to always be about your business. Your posts should be aligned with your brand’s core values and personality.
- Platforms
The kind of platform you choose is important in building your social media presence. Each social network has a unique environment and you need to be able to identify and determine if a specific platform works for your brand. Study and understand your market audience and know what resonates with them on each platform.
- Asking friends to like/follow your page
This is one of the most common mistakes marketers and business owners are guilty of doing. On the surface, this seems harmless. However, these friends or relatives that you asked to like your page and posts are not actually interested in buying your product or even engage in your content. Doing this will affect your engagement rate, which will hurt your organic reach. Eventually, the algorithm will pick up that a lot of people are not interested in your content.
- Putting social media on autopilot
With the available technology, it is easier for us to automate tasks that are quite repetitive. True enough, there are tasks that you can automate, but you should not automate your entire campaign.
Eventually, your audience will sense that your social media is being handled by an algorithm and they will see that you don’t really care about them. It will make them feel that you are using social media just for the sake of having a social media presence. This can have a long-term negative impact on your brand, eventually demoting your content because no one is interested in it. You might have a hard time turning this back up once this happens.
