8 Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid On Social Media
Fact: Social media plays a huge part in our lives. We share on Facebook, we show on Instagram, we find jobs/employees on LinkedIn, we watch on YouTube and we Tweet and Retweet without moderation. Want it or not, posts and notifications are the pulse of our daily routine.
Now, let’s talk business. With more than 1.71 billion monthly active users only on Facebook (that’s basically the size of a continent) there is no doubt that every business owner should invest some time and effort in Zuckerberg’s territory. Of course, according to your activity, the importance of each social network can vary significantly. The main question is: how do you make sure that your social presence gets the respect it deserves?
As a starting point, we strongly advise to avoid these 8 rookie mistakes:
Selfishness
You can’t be selfish and social, it just doesn’t make sense. We are sure that your products and/or services are super valuable and promoting them is the right thing to do – and social is definitely one of right places to do it. Nevertheless, in the social sphere, you should avoid being too self-centric. How? Share your potential partners’ most interesting posts (don’t forget to give them credit), publish some of your clients’ testimonials and organize activities with your community to show them some love.
The benefit is double: on one hand, your engagement with your fan base will rise, and, on the other hand, you’ll develop your network – every social player appreciates when someone shares their post. After all, on social networks like in real life, you will probably make more friends if you don’t speak only about yourself.
Being all over the place
Today, dozens of social media platforms are available and most of them are pretty strong. The temptation: being active on all of them. But, unless you have a big social media team working around the clock, this can be very tricky to pull off. As we often say, quality is more important than quantity.
If you try to be everywhere, you might be overwhelmed very quickly. Our advice is to focus on the 2 to 3 social networks that serve your business needs in the best way. If your target audience is mostly professionals, LinkedIn can be a good option. Want to grab the attention of teenagers and young adults? Snapchat sounds like a plan. Not sure what to choose? Here’s a guide to picking the best social channels for your activity.
Irregularity
Obviously, most SMBs don’t have time to publish new content every day. Some of them can be tempted to publish many times in a row during their free days. This can be problematic for many reasons: first, you don’t want to spam your audience. Second, you don’t want to create unrealistic expectations. Third, if you manage a Facebook page (if not, there is still time to open one), you should know that publishing too many times in the same day can hurt your posts’ reach. And this list can go on.
When you create content, schedule it with tools like Buffer, Hootsuite or eClincher, and make sure that you spread it out on different days. The million dollar question: when is the best time to post? Luckily, we found this complete study. Don’t thank us, it’s our pleasure.
Spelling mistakes
Admite that reding this santence hurt your eiyes. Think about it in the middle of your fans’ feed. It looks unprofessional. Of course, every writer can make typos and unfortunately, there is no magic recipe. One thing you should do is read your content again and again before publishing to make sure it’s perfect. The best option is to ask a friend to go over your text to make sure that in addition to spell checking, the message you want to convey is crystal clear.
Want some extra help with spelling? Just install this super useful application on your browser!
Absenteeism
In this 2.0 world, there are two kinds of people: those who answer comments and messages on their social accounts, and those who dig their own social grave. You don’t want to belong to the second group. One of the main purposes of social channels is to help and answer your followers’ questions. As we said, social is about communication.
If one influential person leaves a message on your wall that doesn’t get answered, this can create a snowball effect that you won’t be able to control. Prevent this from happening by taking 30 minutes a day to go over your fans requests and questions. They’ll see that you actually care about them – which really helps to reinforce trust – and you’ll sleep better at night.
Abusing #Hashtags
Some social network users have a severe addiction to hashtags. And who can blame them? Hashtags are kind of cool. The problem is #when #you #use #them #everywhere #for #no #reason #like #this.
When you decide to use the pound key, try to guess what term in your Tweet/Post really needs to be emphasized visually. More than that, take into account the potential of the #hashtag you pick in terms of visibility in the conversations that are happening at the same moment. Your text will be more readable and your main keyword(s) will stand out.
Patronizing
The informal aspect of social networks gives you a great opportunity to talk with your followers at eye level, and so you should. Be nice, patient, transparent and clear as much as you can. And most importantly, don’t ever patronize them. The more respect and empathy you show, the more engagement and trust you get.
Another common issue: you’re on top of your business trends and news and you assume your followers are too. But the fact that you’re an expert doesn’t mean that the people who follow you know all the professional jargon and technical terms. This gibberish is good when you try to convince top industry people, but for us, regular humans, it can be hard to get.
Neglecting numbers
As you know, almost every social network comes with an analytics tool. These features/platforms allow you to understand who is your core audience, what format of posts works best, what topics are the most popular, what are your fans’ interests, who the most influential followers of your community are and much more! Believe us, neglecting this important data would be a foolish mistake. In order to optimize your results, you have to rely on past insights. Knowledge is power.
