5 Mistakes You Should Avoid

Are you handling your business’ social media account, but finding it hard to make time to share content? When you do have time, are you unhappy with the engagement your posts are getting? Are your followers stagnant or…non-existent? The good new is, you’re not alone. The bad news is, you might be making some of these mistakes that can negatively impact your business’ social media. When you put in work on your social, you expect some payoff. Remove your frustration by avoiding these common mistakes.

We’ll be the first to admit that Facebook is a useful tool…but its not the only one that can help your business. Your industry and/or your audience might be much more active on Twitter but how will you know if you’re not exploring that platform? If you’re having little luck on Facebook, we encourage you to take a stab at posting your content across Pinterest, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn and see which platform is giving you the best engagement (re: payoff) for your time.

Sometimes less is more – and this definitely holds true for hashtags on Instagram. You can post up to 30 hashtags in your caption but please don’t do that, we’re begging you. Instead, focus on including up to 10 hashtags that are key to your business or industry, and put the rest in a comment on your post so that you’re not completely distracting viewers from the caption. The honest truth is: the more hashtags you have, the more desperate you appear. By burying your less relevant hashtags it looks cleaner and more professional.

Even the most conscientious businesses get negative backlash from time to time. We’re taking it back to age-old advice with a new spin: while you can’t control what disgruntled clients write about you, you can control how you react. A genuine, constructive response can go a long way when given in a timely manner. It shows the client you are concerned with solving the issue at hand, and it shows the public you care about customer service and the integrity of your business. Leaving a criticism unresolved can reinforce the negativity, contribute to negative brand sentiment, and tank engagement.

Every social media platform has a feature that digs deeper into your engagement, outlining the demographics of your general audience, the content that it considers successful, and much more. From these insights you can extract valuable, actionable information to help you create more of what works and attract the audience you want. These powerful analytics are free and for your benefit – use them!  

You don’t need to have your social posts planned out day-by-day, but you should have a general idea of the content to focus on each month. Without a rough outline, you could find yourself promoting offers or sales much too late, posting imagery that is rushed and ugly, or creating posts that take away from an in-market campaign. Taking the time to ensure your social is aligned with your brand and your traditional marketing gives a professional, coherent impression even at first glance.

Everyone makes mistakes, it’s ok as long as you learn from them! These tips are a great start to maximize your social media for business. Need more help? Get in touch with us!