Mistakes Your Brand is Making: Social Media can be a marketing minefield but one large misstep could leave your brand or business looking bad and losing leads.
If you’re like most of the 80 million small businesses that use Facebook, you are on the platform in order to:
- Grow a loyal following
- Increase brand awareness
- Drive more traffic to your website and generate sales
All of this is possible by implementing an effective social media strategy. Learn from the mistakes that businesses you will generate explosive growth for your company.
7 Mistakes Your Brand is Making on Social Media
Mistake #1: Mobile unfriendly content
96 percent of active users access Facebook via a mobile device. If your content or the pages you link back to don’t look good on mobile then you are missing out on potential customers and creating a negative, unprofessional image of your brand.
Make sure that everything you post is optimized for mobile devices. Don’t make rookie errors like filming a Facebook video horizontally. Write short headlines to make them more mobile friendly and opt for short, snappy paragraphs over huge chunks of text.
Mistake #2: Inconsistency
Your teeth won’t be clean unless you brush them at least twice a day, you can’t get fit from working out twice a month – and you’re not going to build a loyal following and generate leads on social media if you don’t post regularly.
Make sure that you properly fill out your social media channels. Write an ‘about’ description that accurately captures the voice of your brand. Whichever social channels you decide to be present on, ensure that you remain present. Use sites such as Buffer to ensure that content is consistent.
We’re not suggesting you go overboard but don’t forget about your social media accounts or your followers will forget about you. It’s all about finding the perfect balance between posting too often and too little.
Inconsistency can have a negative impact on branding too. Make sure that you develop a strong brand image and stick to it. Use images that are uniform in style and font and stick to one branded tone of voice. This will lend authority to your business and followers will know exactly what to expect from you.
Mistake #3: Pick the right platforms
While it is important to have a presence across multiple platforms, try not to spread yourself too thin.
A lot of businesses make the mistake of trying to have a presence on too many platforms and not concentrating their efforts on just a few. Choose one or two platforms to master first and once you have a strong following on them you can effectively move your efforts further across more channels.
It’s far better to do just one channel extremely well than to have a number of platforms that are barely in use.
Mistake #4: Ignoring your followers
You want your followers to engage with you, right? Then you need to make sure that whenever they comment on your posts or pages you respond. It might be tempting to ignore or delete negative comments but the reality is that this will only harm your company in the long-term.
Learn to use social media platforms as customer service tools. Develop a brand tone of voice and create an authentic presence on social media. This will foster a relationship with your customers that could lead to loyal, lifelong support.
Also Read: How to Develop iOS Apps On A Windows PC
Mistake #5: Only posting advertisements
45 percent of the world’s population is using social media. The reason that most people use it are to stay connected, entertained and to stay informed – not to look at product shots.
Share content that people can engage with and follow other people. Make it visually appealing by using sites like Canva. Write blog posts, create memes or simply link to places on the web that will appeal to your audience. This will make you a much more valuable account to follow.
Social media is all about connecting with others so make sure that your business connects with others in your industry. This will help draw their audiences to you and could also foster brand partnerships in future.
Mistake #6: Not knowing your audience
Remember who you are aiming your content towards. Be sure to always keep them in mind when posting and putting together a strategy.
When is your target audience most often online? This is when you should post. What kind of language does your target audience use? For example, if they are a younger group perhaps effectively using emojis could lend an appealing and unique voice to your brand.
Reflect your audience in your images too. If you don’t keep a target audience in mind your efforts to create and share great content will be in vain.
Mistake #: Sounding robotic or inauthentic
There are a number of ways that social media channels can come across as inauthentic. The first is by using automated responses or responses that are always exactly the same.
Using language that is too corporate can also be alienating for social media users. Social media tends to be a casual place and the use of overly formal, business-like language can feel jarring.
Leave the stock responses to the press releases and let the true voice of your business come through on social channels. Diversify your replies and make them sound as though they are coming from a real person.
Learn from the above mistakes made by many small businesses on social media and you are well on your way to generating explosive growth for your brand or business. The most important thing is to consistently engage and grow and to present an authentic image of your company that will appeal to your target audience.
HussaiN is a full-time professional blogger from India. He is passionate about content writing, tech enthusiasts, and computer technologies. Apart from content writing on the internet, he likes reading various tech magazines and several other blogs on the internet. Email ID: [email protected]
Finally, I have found something which helped me. Many thanks!