Blog Post 7

9 Mistakes Businesses make on Social Media

I recently read a post on socialmediatoday about the mistakes businesses make on Social Media. It really interested me and I thought it was extremely important to know what to do and what not to do when we eventually need to promote on different social media platforms so I wanted to reiterate this message and expand on a couple of them.

1.     Focusing on the Quantity of the Followers, not the quality

Sometimes companies dwell just on having a massive amount of followers. While this is good for marketing sometimes, like building a network and making others think you are more credible for being popular, it does not help where it counts. If you have a ton of followers but none of them are very interested in your product or likely to buy your product or service it doesn’t help you at all. So sometimes, although it is good to have large numbers of followers, we should think about the quality of our followers and if they are likely to buy rather than just the numbers in general.

2.     Not posting engaging content regularly

If I am interested in a company I am going to want to see what they are doing and when they are doing it. If I don’t see any posts that interest me in a decent amount of time, I will most likely get bored and move onto another similar company. This is why companies have to have a schedule about what they are posting and when they are posting it.

3.     Not converting followers into paid customers

I feel the same way about what I said for the first one. This is all about the quality of the follower not the quantity.

4.     Focusing on too many social media channels

It is great to have different channels but if you are on too many and do not have enough time or man power to successfully advertise on all of them or engage with your audiences then focus on a smaller group of channels that you can actually manage. More information and content on fewer channels will most likely be more effective than a lot of channels with little information and content

5.     Having no Brand Personality

You have to have a brand personality so that it is easier for people to connect with you. If you are dry and have no personality it is less likely to catch peoples attention and make them want to engage in business with you. If you make it personal by having a personality more people will be able to connect on a deeper level.

6.     Spamming

Just no. I hate Spam

7.     Doing Everything Manually

Takes too long. Will not be effective

8.     Broadcasting the Same Message Across all channels

You are on different channels for a reason. If you use the same message across all channels you are not using your time and channels efficiently. It doesn’t have to be drastic but little changes to adapt to the channels and audiences of each channel could have a great impact.

9.     Not having a strategy at all

If you don’t have a strategy at all it is pretty noticeable. This will cause the content to be messy and the frequency of content to be unpredictable and may cause followers to loose interest. A strategy is the first thing your company should come up with, even before choosing the content or channels.