7 Social Media Mistakes to Avoid
/As social media strategists, Kendra and I have the privilege of helping bloggers and business owners effectively leverage their social media to maximize their influence and success. In the course of our work, we see the same mistakes being made. Today, we’re sharing seven social media mistakes to avoid in order to have a successful social strategy.
Starting with all the platforms
You don’t have to be everywhere online in order to be successful. Launching your blog or business with every single social network is completely unnecessary, but unfortunately, it’s a very common practice. Building four or more platforms from the ground up is incredibly challenging. It’s even more challenging to try to build them all within the same time frame. Trying to build a social presence so aggressively can hinder your growth and engagement across all of your platforms, because you end up stretching yourself too thin.
Ignoring your followers
Are you trying to build your tribe while ignoring the audience you already have? Something that I find puzzling is when bloggers indicate that they want more engagement on their platforms, but they currently don’t respond to the comments that they already get. Kendra and I try our best to respond to every single comment and interact with our tribe because we appreciate our readers and supporters. Personally, if I see that someone doesn’t engage with their followers, it’s less likely that I’ll interact with that account. As you’re trying to grow your brand, don’t get so caught up in finding new followers that you never interact with those who have already given you their support. And please, be genuine. You can read more about our case against automated engagement in this post.
Creating new content for your social platforms
When you are organizing your social media content for the week, do you create something new for each post? In our experience, we’ve seen bloggers and business owners make more work for themselves by trying to create an original piece every time a post is due on social media. Of course, you shouldn’t post the same content over and over again, but you should certainly repurpose older content whenever you can. We’ve saved clients hours of time by teaching them how to repurpose the content they already have. If you would like to learn more about repurposing your content, you don’t want to miss How to Repurpose Your Blog Content for Social Media.
Automatically add people to your Facebook group
This is a tactic that seems to be increasingly popular, and I wish I knew where this idea is coming from! I’ve been added to at least three Facebook groups without my consent, and always without warning. Please don’t do this. Even if you’re “friends” with the person you want to add to your group, make sure you have their permission before you automatically include them in your group. You never know if the person you’re thinking of adding wants to scale back on the amount of groups they’re in, or they may not be interested. Please, send them an email or a message indicating that you’d like to invite them to join your group, and await their permission before adding them.
Managing your social media 100% manually
Many bloggers and business owners we encounter who aren’t happy with their social media strategy tend to manage their social platforms manually. Managing your social media 100% manually definitely makes it harder to create a robust social strategy, and it takes time away from other areas of business. Utilizing schedulers, content planners, and other tools not only frees up some of your time, but they’re also immensely helpful when it comes to organization. We believe that automation is great for scheduling and streamlining your social media presence, but we don’t encourage automation for interaction/engagement purposes.
Appearing spammy
Promoting your content on social media is absolutely critical in order to drive visitors back to your blog, sign up for your mailing list, purchase your products, etc, but don’t forget the social aspect of social media. Your audience wants to know who you are, and they want to know what sets you apart from others in this online space. So, don’t just promote, promote, promote. Share behind the scenes details, fun facts about yourself, helpful tidbits, etc. No one wants to follow an account that’s a never ending advertisement. Balance your promotions with helpful and fun content to keep your audience coming back.
Hiding your business
What we’ve noticed on some business owners’ social platforms is the complete opposite of our last point. Some bloggers and business owners don’t talk enough about the products and services that they’re offering. It’s so easy (and addicting!) to share popular quotes, selfies, home decor, etc and forget to show your followers exactly what you have to offer. Never assume that your followers know the details of your products or the services that you provide. Share your pricing info, your testimonials, who you serve, and how you serve them. It seems so simple, but this is actually a common mistake.
And there you have it. These are seven social media “don’ts” that we cannot emphasize enough. Is there anything that we left off? Let us know in the comments below!
PSST!: If you want to know the exact hashtags that you need to use to get noticed on Instagram, check out The Instagram Hashtag Catalog.
