Wondering why your social media presence isn’t producing the results that you expected?
Here are the top 7 social media mistakes that we see and hear business owners making on a regular basis.
Social Media Mistake 1:
No regular engagement
This is the biggest social media mistake we see business owners make. We often hear our clients say that their engagement is going down and when we ask them if they’re engaging on their page and with other accounts, they say no.
People often forget that “social media” intends you to be social and not just post and leave. So you need to be engaging on a daily basis.
If you don’t have the time, the reduce the number of posts you’re creating or schedule the posts in advance (see our recommended platform here) and spend that time engaging.
Wondering how you go about engaging? The key here is to be doing it in an authentic way. Contribute to the conversation. Reply to questions that the poster or other commenters are asking. Reply to all comments left on your page and yes, even the ones from bots.
A popular strategy is called the $1.80 – you leave 2 cents on on the top 9 trending Instagram posts for 10 different hashtags that are relevant to your brand or business every single day.
Great tool we use and recommend is Dollar Eighty which simplifies the research and execution of this strategy.
It can seem daunting when starting a business, there are so many things that need to be done. Start by committing to spending at least 15 minutes a day with the sole purpose of engaging. Like all things in business, it’s about consistently doing the work needed to move the business forward.
Social Media Mistake 2:
Not having a strategy and sticking to it
There’s no point just posting on social media because you think you should and everyone else’s doing it.
There’s so much more to it than that!
When working with businesses, we work out how they can use social media to grow their business and increase their revenue. Every business needs to have systems in place to make that happen in an effective and smooth way.
Don’t be that business that just posts willy nilly without direction or purpose. We work with clients to ensure every post created has a reason and follows the strategy than just needing to post because there hasn’t been a post for 2 days.
Sit down and figure out our goals, a content calendar and figure out how your posts will help you get closer to your goals.
Social Media Mistake 3:
Worrying too much about THE number
I’m talking about followers. Yes, we’d all love to grow our accounts and see our followers grow but don’t focus solely on it. When you give value to your audience and engage, you will see growth.
We hear so much about ‘strategies’ to grow the number and you know what? It’s not the most important part!
Is the number going to increase the bottom line in your business? Maybe but probably not. What’s going to generate an income in your business is to build trust and authority with your audience, then converting them to customers. It’s no surprise that this will take time. You will also need to have systems in place to capture leads and move the viewer over to your website. If that’s not happening, there isn’t much value in just a larger following.
Social Media Mistake 4:
Not creating quality content
Please practice quality over quantity. Take the time to plan out your posts and to make each one count. Each post should achieve a purpose, whether that’s building trust, building authority, building your email list, driving traffic to your website, driving engagement or generating sales.
There are times when you feel like there’s nothing to post about. To combat this, we create a running list of quotes, resources and other placeholder content that our client’s audience will benefit from.
When we talk about quality content, we are referring to both the image and copy. They are both so important! We hear so often that business owners say that they aren’t able to create great images for their social media.
We highly recommend that you get a professional photo shoot. If you don’t have the funds available for that then we usually suggest that you start collecting clothing and props that align with your branding and batch some photos yourself. Get familiar with your camera and Lightroom and you’ll be on your way. It can seem daunting in the beginning but you will get better at it. You’ll start to figure out what works and what doesn’t and then focus on what works.
If being in front of your camera is just not the right solution for you or you are looking to create graphics, there are many great tools available for free to help you create content.
As for the copy, we know from experience (both from a content consumer and producer) that the best performing posts are ones that are able to achieve what you set out to do but intertwined into a story. Everyone loves and a good story and it gives your audience a way to get to know and trust you even more.
Social Media Mistake 5:
Spreading themselves too thin
There’s a myth out there that you need to be everywhere, all of the time. Your business will perform better if you’re more committed to one or two platforms rather than trying to spread yourself across 3,4 or 5 platforms.
Each business is unique in what performs better with your audience so you will need to have a play around. The other pointer that we usually give business owners is to choose platforms that they enjoy being on. If you’re happy to be there, you will naturally be more social and interact with other accounts. Not a surprise really!
The platforms that we recommend starting with are Facebook or Instagram, LinkedIn (B2B) , TikTok and Pinterest (Pinterest is technically a search engine but I’m including it here).
Social Media Mistake 6:
They give up too early
This one breaks my heart.
We all have also been there though. We understand why people give up early. In the beginning, it can feel like you’re talking to a brick wall. It gets disheartening quickly!
Most people will know what you’re feeling. On the flip side, the accounts that you admire pushed through that feeling and kept consistently showing up and providing value with their audience. With commitment and persistence, they were able to grow their large following and build up their engagement.
When you have that feeling arise, give yourself a pep talk and show up the next day and keep plugging away at it.
Social Media Mistake 7:
Not learning how to create beautiful graphics
We can’t all be graphic designers but there’s no reason you can’t create your own branded images to use on social media.
When I come across an account that has obviously invested the time (or money and outsourced it) into creating great graphics, I’m more inclined to follow them. Maybe I’m superficial, maybe we just love seeing great graphics.
There are ways to create graphics, even without a design background. You can purchase templates from Creative Market and edit them in Canva. You can use the paid version of Canva so you can use your own fonts in your graphics or you can learn how to use Illustrator (this is my personal favourite!). Whatever you do, sit down and create them in bulk, it will save you so much time.
There you have it, the top 7 social media mistakes that we see business owners making on a regular basis.
Our recommendations for marketing tools that will kick your Marketing Strategy into full gear!
StoryChief – Collaborate on content campaigns from start to finish: publish articles to your website, create social posts and measure the performance, in one central place.
Sendinblue – Create a professional-looking email in no time! Choose to start with a template email template library, or build a new design from scratch!
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