If you are new to social media marketing, you’re probably going to make mistakes along the way. Even experienced social marketers and big companies can get themselves into hot water making mistakes. In this short guide, we’ll discuss some of the most common mistakes you can make on social media and how to overcome or avoid them.
Not dealing with negative feedback
In the old days, a company got negative feedback from a phone call. The entire world wasn’t there to see it. Today, whether it’s on Facebook or on a blog, a negative comment can be very public indeed. How you deal with the negative comment is something that’s going to have a large impact on your overall reputation.
One thing that is sometimes done if it’s possible is simply deleting negative comments. That is a bad strategy. The reality is many people are going to see the negative comments before you can delete them. That makes it look like you’re hiding something. Ignoring negative comments isn’t good either, because that makes it look like you’ve got a company that isn’t responsive to customer concerns.
Make it a practice to respond to negative comments in a friendly and constructive manner. Do it no matter how nasty the comment directed to you or your company is. When you handle complaints in a positive way, which puts your company in a very positive light. Most people are not going to be the angriest person in the room, but if others see you responding to negative feedback in a friendly way that is intended to help the customer, they are going to feel more confident in dealing with you and buying your products or services.
Too Much Promotion
It’s too easy to constantly promote yourself. You should be focusing on not promoting yourself and your products instead. Rather than being a pushy sales operation, become a wealth of information about your niche and help people by engaging. Post relevant and interesting content without making a sales offer.
Simply post the content for the sake of doing so. This will help people get more engaged with your social media profiles. People don’t want to subscribe to a YouTube channel or follow a Twitter feed if every single thing they hear from you is a sales pitch. Mix it up, so that people simply think of you like contact with interesting information.
Not enough interaction
One of the reasons that you need to limit the number of social media platforms that you are using is that you need to be actively engaged. That means frequent posting. And it has to be quality posting, you can’t be putting up anything that doesn’t offer value. If you are on too many social media platforms, you are not going to be able to devote enough time to build up a solid following on each platform.
If you are simply neglecting your accounts, your followers aren’t going to feel engaged, and when you do get around to posting, they aren’t going to take notice of it. You should also engage with comments. Don’t just post, and then disappear. That doesn’t mean you have to engage with every single user comment, but a few responses can go a long way toward building a passionate following.
Too Many Profiles
My point of view is that you should stick to a single profile on each social media platform. Many people have a tendency to create multiple accounts. For example, it’s possible to create a niche account on Instagram. So, why not create more than one? Well, that is not a good idea. Stay focused with one account per platform.
Not using analytics
If you are using social media to drive traffic to your main website, you need to find out where your traffic is coming from. You do that with analytics tools. If you are spending a lot of time posting on 10 social media sites and only two of them are responsible for driving 80% of your traffic to the main website, wouldn’t you want to know this information? You definitely need to include analytics as a part of your business. And if you find out that your efforts on some social media site are a waste of time, then you need to cut them out and devote more time to the sites that actually deliver.
Not Being Fully Aware of a Sites Terms of Service
Sure, we don’t like to read them. They are long, boring, and full of legalese. And then, we’re shocked when our accounts get shut down, seemingly out of nowhere. Of course, it may be unfair, but the reality is social media platforms are private. That means, they get to set the terms of who has access, and they can decide what the rules are. If you breach any of the terms, then it’s your fault and they have the right to shut down your account. Remember that you are in business, so you should be familiar with the policies that are in place for each platform.
Content that is more of the same
A successful social media account is going to be posting diversified content. Yes, it needs to be connected to your main niche, but if you keep posting about the same thing all the time, it’s going to get boring fast. Mix things up with different topics and also be sure to mix up the types of media you use in your postings. If you post nothing but text all the time while talking about the same topics over and over again, that isn’t going to be as helpful as mixing it up with new topics, keeping up with current events related to your niche, and including multimedia.
Don’t use automated tools
There are many automated tools that people looking for shortcuts use. This can include automated tools that will generate backlinks to your site, or automation tools that use content from other sites to automatically generate articles. Doing those things might save you a little bit of time in the here and now, but they are not going to help you build a successful business. The minute that a user spots the fact that you are reusing content or posting for the sake of getting links back to your main website, that is going to be the time that you lose a fan. Also, keep in mind that search engines like Google will penalize websites for using duplicate content, not to mention that you could get in trouble for copyright infringement.