The Top Mistakes Businesses Make on Social Media
In today’s modern age, marketing on social media is an everyday aspect of doing business. It has simply become the norm. You have your company’s Twitter account, Facebook page, LinkedIn, and even Instagram account.
This is all because staying relevant on social media means you are connecting with potential customers/clients, establishing your brand, and simply keeping what you do in front of the eyes of the people who need it.
With that being said, there are actually many different mistakes that are made every single day regarding how social media is used by businesses. These are not just small mistakes either. Many of these mistakes include:
- Losing their temper while responding to negative feedback
- Not posting enough or at all
- Not replying to comments and messages
No matter what the circumstances may be, these are considered missteps that can seriously damage the online presence of your business. On top of that, it can even destroy relationships with current and potential customers and clients.
But don’t worry. We’ve put together the top mistakes that most business owners make on social media so you know what they are and how to avoid them.
1. You Don’t Have a Strategy
Before you even think about posting any type of photo, post, tweet, or anything else, you must have some type of social media strategy that you are going to follow. This means that you must have a set schedule of times that you will be posting, what you are going to be posting, the target audience of those posts, and what you are saying to those people.
- Are you sharing life hacks?
- Maybe it’s motivational tips?
- Telling people about the services you provide?
- Sharing some motivational guru advice?
All of this is an important part of your social media strategy and something that you should know before posting anything. Most businesses start on social media without having any type of strategy and end up either giving up or confusing all of their followers who will then give up. To begin with, you can consider buying Instagram followers from services like Twicsy.
2. You Respond to Bad Feedback Impulsively
Considered to be one of the most common mistakes that businesses make on social media, responding to negative feedback emotionally is never a good thing for you. You must keep in mind that there are always those types of people out there who will leave negative feedback for any variety of reasons.
At the very same time, this doesn’t mean that you need to respond in an emotional manner. In fact, most of the time, responding to negative feedback in a mature, logical, and professional manner will not only make you look better but make the negative review poster even angrier.
This is because most people who go out of their way to bad mouth your business are never going to be satisfied no matter what you do and are only looking for a similar reaction from you.
The best thing you can do when you receive negative feedback (which will happen eventually), is to take a little time before you respond. When you are ready to respond with a professional and calm demeanor, be apologetic, helpful, clear, and professional. Even if you know that the person leaving the poor review is in the wrong, nobody else reading that review knows it.
Answer every negative review with a reply as though you are a potential customer reading it and you will have no problem addressing any issues while still looking like a great business.
3. You Over-Post
Having a consistent posting schedule is an essential part of a successful social media campaign. However, many business owners make the big mistake of posting way too much. This means that they are going to be flooding all of their followers with posts that they don’t want.
The result? People start unfollowing your business.
Studies have shown that posting 1-2x’s per day is sufficient for most local businesses. Now keep in mind that this depends upon the niche that you are serving.
For example:
- If you are selling weight loss products (or any products for that matter), you should be posting about one time per day.
- If you are a service-oriented business, you should be posting between 5-10x’s per week at most.
Just be sure that you spend some time to find the perfect balance that works for you and then stay consistent with that balance.
4. You Don’t Engage with Your Followers
Keep in mind that it is called SOCIAL media! You would be surprised how many different business owners have forgotten that social media is supposed to be social.
This means that if somebody leaves a comment on one of your posts or company’s page, you should immediately acknowledge and address it. What this does is take care of that particular follower, but it also shows other potential customers that you take your business seriously.
Even if it is something as silly as saying ‘thank you’, when you take the time to respond you will be showing everybody else that you do care.
5. You Don’t Check for Mistakes or Typos
While this may seem like a silly thing to have on a list of mistakes that businesses make on social media, you would be surprised how often it happens. There is no denying that not everybody is going to be an excellent writer or speller.
But this doesn’t mean that you should not double-check what you are planning on posting. This is because when you do have silly spelling and other wording mistakes in your posts, it looks very poorly on you and your company. In fact, it makes it very hard for anybody to take you seriously.
This is because when you think of somebody making a simple spelling error, you think of a second-grader, not a business. So do yourself a favor and double-check everything for accuracy before you decide to post it.
Just remember that social media is extremely important for your business. By having a strong sense of social media branding, you will have no problem avoiding all of the simple mistakes that have been mentioned above.