9 Important Social Media Mistakes To Avoid
Running social media pages for your brand can be tiring. There are so many platforms and overlooking all of them together can lead to social media mistakes.
However, these mistakes can greatly impact your brand’s reach and impression. If you want to excel at marketing your brand through social media, this article is for you.
Keep reading to know what important and often repeated mistakes you should avoid to not have a negative impact on your brand.
1.
Social Media Mistakes in Planning
Before you begin a Social Media Strategy there needs to be thorough planning.
When you begin promoting your brand, having a set plan and target audience guides your content.
Going unplanned will create several obstacles during your social media journey.
1. Not Having a PlanIt is lucrative to start promoting your brand before a plan.
However, it is not that beneficial.
You should be clear about your goals and what you want from running a social media campaign.
Focus on these goals as you do with other marketing campaigns.
What you should have before you start:
- Plan of action
- Goals
- Budget
- Objectives to Achieve
Moreover, you should also know beforehand how to measure the results and as well as the resources needed to achieve results.
Starting without a plan will create several hindrances and your content quality will suffer too.
2. Not Defining a Target Audience
You will not see good results unless you are approaching the right audience.
Simply leaving posts on your pages without defining a target audience will bring no good.
You need to target your posts and campaigns to people who show interest in your brand.
Those that don’t will simply not reciprocate your efforts.
The social media network, Instagram usually has Generation Z and Millenials as users between ages 18 to 34.
However, if you simplify those by just posting memes and jokes because these generations like that then you are going nowhere.
You should not care about what audiences like as a whole.
Rather focus on what your buyers want from your brand.
This specifies your content and your marketing approaches making them more appealing to the target audience.
3. Fake Followers
Technically, getting fake followers is against the rules of social media.
Though, it is hard to deny that it looks lucrative.
But that’s all. It is tempting and extremely bad for your pages.
This is because the Facebook and Instagram algorithm does not support it.
This happens because posts become visible to a larger audience when there are enough authentic likes and engagement.
These bought followers will not engage with your content.
Hence, the algorithm will not show it to the rest of your followers if the first few ones don’t engage.
In the past, Facebook has deleted over 2 billion fake accounts.
Simply, because these fake followers were preventing content from reaching authentic followers that result in a conversion.
So you do not actually need fake followers, rather you need conversions from your target audience.
Hence, forego this unethical practice to look slightly trustworthy.
2.
Social Media Mistakes in Content
Even if you plan well, you can make mistakes in content.
The use of hashtags, imagery, caption, anything can come as off-putting.
Thus, you need to tread carefully and avoid the following mistakes.
1. Posting the Same Content Across All Social Media Platforms
Each social media platform is unique.
Instagram relies more on engaging imagery, Tik Tok has short-form video content, LinkedIn has career-oriented content.
In order to grow your brand, you should be able to communicate according to the audience using that platform.
Otherwise, it may not sit well with your audience.
Also, some things work better in one platform but not the other.
For instance, hashtags work on Instagram and Twitter but do not have the same efficacy on Facebook.
On the other hand, if you curate different content for all platforms, you can find different opportunities to grow your brand across platforms.
Therefore specifically tailored content will increase your reach.
This is due to the fact that the audience is familiar with the style of content you will post.
They will engage with it accordingly.
Also, remember that it is not necessary to be on every single social media platform.
Rather save your time and effort by sticking with those that align with your brand and give you results.
Therefore, keep checking your analytics.
This way you can give all your time, effort and energy to make valuable content on a few platforms that lead to conversions.
Now that you know that each platform’s content should be different, let’s find out how you can avoid mistakes in the actual content.
2. Social Media Mistakes in Posts-Wrong Tone and Hashtags
You cannot be reckless with your caption.
No one bothers about a personal profile, but if you are a brand, the captions can represent your brand.
If you adopt a very formal tone, there is a risk of coming off as boring.
If your captions and imagery are rather boring, it can easily get lost in your audience’s feed which already has tonnes of interesting content.
This mistake is rather hard to avoid because sometimes you may not get any inspiration but you can look up to other social media influencers for that.
However, a greater problem is being too casual that it may come off as offensive and nonserious.
Your tone should align with your audience’s mood but do not make jokes that fall flat.
Hence, look into your audience as well as their preferred influencers to write your captions.
The same applies to hashtags.
Hashtags are an effective way to get noticed especially when a conversation is trending.
However, your brand does not need to get into irrelevant conversations.
For instance, if you sell food, you are in no position to use a hashtag for domestic violence.
You can show support but not use trending hashtags, irrelevant to your brand to promote your products.
In order to voice solidarity go for a serious tone but usually just stick with basic hashtags that align with your brand.
3. Avoiding User Generated Content and Excessive Self Promotion
You obviously need your own content on socials.
However, excess of everything isn’t great.
If you don’t experiment and only post your original content then your audience may soon get tired of it.
Thus, post curated content of other creators or encourage user-generated content to try something new.
You never know it may click with your audience much better.
You can post researches of other content businesses and informative articles related to your niche even if it sends traffic to other sites.
As long as they get your audience interested in the content you post, it is a plus.
Moreover, this can also be a way for people to get familiar with your brand, in case they repost your brand mentioning theirs’.
Other than that, you can introduce user-generated content.
This allows the audience to relate with the brand, find it trustworthy and engage more.
By launching competitions and encouraging the participation of your audience you can increase your brands’ social media followers and their engagement.
Posting your own content is good as long as it does not get bothersome.
So, create a healthy balance of including curated content and user-generated content along with your original posts to keep the audience involved.
4. Posting Videos and Images in Landscape
When you post videos, do not give a Youtube link everywhere.
Rather post them directly to the social network.
Now Facebook and Instagram have their own video sections as it is a growing medium.
Hence, make use of Facebook video and IGTV to spread your content on related social media.
Also when you are posting images and videos, do not only consider the landscape mode.
You will be surprised to know that square videos and images take much more space on the feed.
Now that Instagram supports square videos and images, that draws attention to the viewers.
They lead to more views and engagement as they occupy up to 78 percent larger space.
When people are increasingly using their phones to surf social networks they can come across these square images and videos occupying most of their screen.
Hence, demanding attention.
Social Media Mistakes Regarding Comments
5. Not Replying to Comments
Your engagement rate will boost by having lots of comments on your posts.
Therefore, whenever someone comments, leave a comment of thanks or answer their query.
Other than that, establish two-way communication with your audiences.
This will help them to relate to your brand better and form a bond with you.
It is a small act of validating them but it goes a long way.
Keep your tone polite or respectful, no matter what the comment is.
When people notice that you care about them to reply, they value your brand in return.
Thus do not isolate your comment section for the followers only.
Rather engage in meaningful conversations with your audience.
6. Deleting Negative Comments on Posts
You should preferably have meaningful conversations in order to not harm your reputation.
Though, do not shy away from handling negative ones.
If someone leaves a negative comment or review, deal with it positively.
Acknowledge what they say if it is right, thank them for advising you ensure them that you are working on it.
However, some comments will only be borderline toxic.
Ignore them because your valuable audience will know the difference between constructive criticism and toxicity.
Do not delete negative comments or posts that gather negative comments because it is better to remain transparent and authentic.
Summing Up
These social media mistakes are more common than you think.
Avoid them and keep a check on your analytics to see if your strategy is working.
Lesser mistakes will equal more conversions.