Mistakes brands make with social media
Social media is an important tool to use in your marketing campaigns. You have to wield the tool properly though, otherwise you run the risk of doing damage to yourself and your brand. It can feel like a minefield.
There are things to avoid doing. You definitely do not want to make these errors that can seriously hinder your social media marketing growth.
1. You try to “wing” your social media
Trying to do social media for your company or your brand without having a solid plan behind it is almost always doomed for failure. While there may be an outlier with people who have nimble enough minds to quickly pivot to trends, you should have something outlined in advance.
That means researching things and then looking inward at what you, your company, or your brand would offer on social media. Then start constructing and posting things. But be careful, or you could make the mistake listed below.
2. You focus on quantity over quality
This is not the place to just keep throwing out stuff to see what sticks. If people see you throwing out rapid-fire stream of consciousness type things, they will think that your efforts are amateurish at best. That will likely lead to them tuning you out.
Instead, think hard about how you want to present yourself to the world. Craft things to put out on social media that represent you or your company’s brand and share your company’s experience and expertise. People will appreciate the extra effort.
3. Inauthentic communication with your target audience
Building a genuine connection with your audience is essential for social media marketing growth. Using bots or automated responses can give the impression of engagement, but it often comes off as insincere.
Real-Life Example: An influencer hired a service to boost their follower count on Instagram. While they gained thousands of followers, their engagement rate plummeted because most of these followers were inactive or fake accounts.
4. Responding poorly to negative comments or reviews
Criticism is an inevitable part of the social media landscape. Brands that ignore or delete negative comments and feedback risk damaging their reputation.
Handling criticism with professionalism and empathy can turn a negative situation into a positive one.
Real-Life Example: A restaurant faced backlash on Twitter when a customer complained about a bad dining experience. Instead of addressing the issue and offering a solution, the restaurant's social media team deleted the tweet, sparking further outrage.
5. You use the same content on different platforms
You may think that you are saving time and effort by just doing a cross-platform post. Instead, you are showing yourself to be lazy and unimaginative. Also, it often suggests that you don’t know the purpose of each platform.
Putting the same pithy tweet on LinkedIn would not garner the attention that you want. Look at what is being posted on each platform and create content specifically for those. Do a great visual post for Instagram, for example.
There are other things to avoid doing, like trying to join every platform … which will stretch your capabilities. It’s best to find a couple that fit you best and then master those instead of being adequate or worse in all. Not finding your audience is a mistake, as well.
Social media can be hard, but if you put in the work, then seeing the success can be fun too. Just be careful not to make the above mistakes, and your chances will improve.
About our guest author Brandon Leibowitz
Brandon Leibowitz is the founder of SEO Optimizers, a Digital Marketing Agency in Los Angeles, California. He is also the founder of Bosmol.com, a social media news log. He has been involved with search engine optimisation and internet marketing since 2007.
Contacting Social Hive
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