You’ve poured your heart and soul (and many hours) into building your social media communities, and you are proud of what you are growing. But just one slip-up could contaminate your brand’s carefully cultivated reputation, tearing down all your hard work in an instant. To avoid such a major mishap, make sure you’re not committing any of these four common mistakes.
1. Overload on Auto-Posting
By now, we all know about or have used a social media scheduler like Hootsuite or Buffer. In our fast-paced world, it makes sense to plan posts in advance to free up our time to focus on other areas of business. What doesn’t work is when our social media presence is a conglomeration of mechanically produced posts that automatically publish without considering real-time trends, reactions, and especially customer needs. If a brand is focused on simply cranking out content without engagement, they will eventually give the appearance that they are only interested in promoting themselves, and they have little regard for anyone else.
While scheduling posts is an invaluable resource, make sure the focus of your social media presence is consistently engaging over meaningful and shareable content, and know that sometimes, that means breaking out of a schedule.
Need help with your daily engagement? Take a look at Ghost Tweeting’s social media management programs.
2. Getting Too Opinionated
Whatever the social network, followers desire authenticity and connection. Knowing the face and the story behind a brand creates an attachment and loyalty to the company that helps brands stand out from a crowd of lifeless logos. What doesn’t help in this department is getting overly opinionated. Unless you are in the business of giving political commentary, sharing your views about sensitive or controversial topics such as politics or religion is never a good idea. Engaging in negative talk or feedback, no matter how warranted it may be also has the ability to tarnish your brand’s personality.
Other than that, show us your dog, a behind the scenes tour of the office, and your new shoes. Just keep the controversy and negativity out, please.
3. Lack of Original Content
If you want to solidify your status as an industry leader in your field, you have to come up with your own content. While sharing related articles, videos, and information from other sources is a great way to appeal to your audience (and not to be dismissed!), your original content with your name, your likeness, and your logo is what establishes authority. For optimal social media success, combine high quality original content with curated content to build your brand as a credible source within your industry.
But don’t skimp when it comes to your content: the higher the caliber of your content, the greater your marketing efforts will pay off.
4. Spreading Yourself Too Thin
Most of us are on more than one social media platform; some of us are on ALL of them. Do you really need to establish a presence on every network? The answer is NO.
Ghost Tweeting CEO Nika Stewart suggests going all out on ONE network until it becomes second nature. Then you can add more. “You are either giving 20% of your energy and effort to each of five networks, or 100% of your energy and effort to one. Which case do you think will yield better results?”
Find out where your targeted audience hangs out. A finance-related business will have more success with LinkedIn or Facebook than on Instagram or Snapchat. Conversely, a cosmetics startup geared toward twenty-something’s is going to want to focus on Instagram and Snapchat, where audiences are younger and more visually stimulated. Hone in on one or two of the major social media networks and stick with building a presence on those platforms.
Oh, and don’t make the mistake of trying to do it all alone. Smart entrepreneurs outsource what they struggle with so they can focus on their brilliance. See all the Ghost Tweeting Social Media Management programs here.
