05 Jun 7 Things to Avoid in Your Social Media Strategy
We now spend a third of our internet time on social media channels. It has become the gateway to our news, communication and everything in between.
Most of us are aware of the basics; it’s talked about everywhere. Post valuable content, post often and answer any questions – and we all need to be doing the basics, but what if you’re looking to improve your social media and take it even further, then this article will give you the 7 things you need to avoid. Falling victim to any of these pointers can be extremely damaging to your social strategy.
We have all been guilty of some of these, so don’t feel bad if you find you have fallen foul to one of these points. This will help you avoid them for the future and build a successful social strategy.
1. DON’T FOCUS TOO MUCH ON GETTING MORE FOLLOWERS
Don’t waste time or money on running promotions or campaigns that merely aim to grow the number of followers of your page. It’s important that you improve the quality not the quantity. Numbers are great but are they likely to become leads?
Your audience will grow on its own if you often engage and share valuable content.
2. DON’T GET DEFENSIVE
Negative comments are always frustrating, especially if they are not justified. It may seem like a good idea to ignore or delete them. We always recommend responding to all your comments whether they’re positive or negative, but when it comes to negative comments, try not to get too defensive.
We understand that you are passionate about your service and your business and it’s not great to hear negative comments, but before you reply, take some time be calm and collective. If you jump in at the wrong time, you might send the wrong message.
If it’s one of your customers that have had a bad experience with your service or product and needs customer service help, respond as quickly as possible.
3. DON’T JUST POST DURING WORKING HOURS
Posting content during your working hours is great, but most of your audience and community will be working during the day and will be most active outside of work hours.
We have found that posting during the evening and on weekends (outside of regular office hours) will drive more engagement to your posts.
If this is going to conflict with your personal life, then you can always use a scheduling tool like the Fitness Pro Digital Social Media Scheduler which is free. Then you can post outside of your regular working hours, although you will need to keep an eye on any replies. Keep an eye on your engagement and do your best to be responsive.
4. DON’T HAVE SIMPLE PASSWORDS
Most businesses have more than one person that has access to the business page. When creating the page and making it accessible try not to use passwords that are easy and memorable, as you don’t want someone accessing your social media accounts and causing you some trouble.
Keep passwords hard to hack and only give them out to your team who will access the account. If an employee leaves your business, be sure to change your passwords, so that it stays within your business.
5. DON’T POST THE SAME CONTENT ACROSS ALL CHANNELS
Most people will follow you across multiple channels if you post the same content on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram – they may as well just follow one, right?
Using the same content throughout reduces any incentive for people to follow you on multiple channels. Keep each channel fresh and bring in more quality followers.
6. DON’T JUST USE SOCIAL MEDIA TO POST CONTENT
Posting on social media is, of course, the primary method of getting quality content out, but limit it to this try to go beyond traditional marketing objectives. One excellent way of using social media to promote your business is with customer service.
Many customers now take to social media when looking for customer service. This is ideal for businesses as it is much easier and cheaper than spending hours on calls and emails. If you’re responding to feedback and service issues promptly on social, this will provide measurable and valuable returns.
Recent studies also show that customer retention increases when customers receive quick replies on social. So measure these areas, and not just how many Facebook subscribers signed up for your email list.
7. DON’T FORGET TO TEST
We always recommend testing, it’s a vital part of marketing success and will help you learn what works and what doesn’t. Once you start to eliminate those that don’t your business will start to grow. Testing can range from the timings of your posts to split testing your ads to see what works.
Always when testing only change one variable element at a time, like the headline, image, or call to action, but not all three at once. This way you can get a clearer understanding of what works.