Social media can be an excellent tool for business success, but like any tool, if you don’t use it the right way, then it could cause more harm than good. While the number of mistakes you can make on social media is almost limitless, let’s look at nine common faux pas that can alienate your followers and earn a giant black mark for your business.
Over-posting
Posting content on social media is a great way to stay in your potential customer’s mind, but posting too much is a great way to get kicked off your potential customer’s feed. Posting too often or adding frequent posts with little value is a form of spamming and should be avoided.
Forgetting conversation
Social media isn’t like a billboard for your services. To best use it, you want to foster relationships with followers and others, and that means having conversations. Respond to the people who interact with your brand on social media and show a more human side.
Selling all the time
While people likely follow your social media account because they are interested in hearing about you and from you, that doesn’t mean they want to be sold to all the time. Mix your message up. Talk about current events, share pictures and occasionally share sale-focused content.
Regimenting posting times
Countless studies have been done telling business owners the most effective times to share messages on social media. While that information can inform your content posting habits, it shouldn’t dictate your schedule. Instead, you should have someone pop on and off of social media occasionally at different time throughout the day so your brand can remain part o the conversation.
Being “you” centered
As mentioned previously, a successful social media strategy is about interacting with followers, and that likely means not talking about your brand all the time.
Not posting images
Images are often some of the most shared posts on social media. Whether it’s infographics, memes, charts or fun pictures, images are a great way to communicate and help spread the word about your company.
Outsourcing poorly
It’s a great idea to outsource the handling of your social media accounts, but make sure you choose someone who understands the casual language and terms used by your target audience.
Forgetting your target audience
Speaking of target audiences, make sure the content you share on social media is always created with them in mind. It should appeal to your ideal follower and motivate them to engage with you.
Focusing on popularity over engagement
Many brands look more at their number of followers on various social media outlets and measure success by those numbers. But real success on social media is more about engagement–the number of people who are actively paying attention to your posts and interacting with them. Those are the people you are reaching.
Keeping these nine social media faux pas in mind may help you discover how profound a difference social media can have on the success of your business.
