Social media is an important part of any company’s marketing strategy, but there must be a plan in place for it to be successful. Many people think that social media is easy and can be handled internally, which in some cases is true, and in others, it is so false. So how can businesses successfully handle their social media accounts, and how do they avoid the most common mistakes? Let’s take a look.
Quantity Over Quality
This is probably the biggest mistake businesses make: they look at social media as ‘quantity over quality,’ which is completely wrong. Your focus should not be on posting daily, multiple times each day, or even just a few times each week. Instead, you must focus on posting quality content. If you’re posting just to post, it will be obvious. Unfortunately, it dilutes the messaging, the content may be useless, and your followers will stop engaging.
On the other hand, if you focus on posting quality, helpful, informative, or engaging content, your numbers will increase in all ways – followers, engagements, reach, and more. If there’s only one thing you remember from this blog post, it’s this: every post must have a purpose. Ensure that your followers will get something out of every post they see, whether that’s new information, helpful tips, or even a laugh – your followers must find purpose in your posts or they will not engage and will ultimately unfollow, causing more harm than if you had just stayed silent.
Having a Presence on Every Platform
It’s important to find the right platforms for your audience; not every company needs to be on every platform. If you’re a B2B company, for example, you should be on LinkedIn, not Instagram. If you sell beautiful artwork, you should focus on Instagram and Facebook. And if you’re a funny or snarky company, focus on Twitter and perhaps TikTok.
You also must know who your target audience is and where they spend their time online. Use these notes as starting guidelines but dig deeper when deciding where to focus your content and energy. If your audience is 50+, focus on Facebook. If you’re targeting teens and young adults, focus on Instagram and TikTok. You must find the right balance between finding where your audience is and which platforms make sense for your product or service.
Posting the Same Content on Every Platform
This tip follows closely with the previous and goes back to focusing on the right platforms. Not everything is appropriate on every platform, which is why it’s important to focus on the right platforms for your brand. If the messaging doesn’t make sense, it’s a waste. You also shouldn’t post the same thing on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram; if you do want to post the same information, you should tweak each post to make it appropriate for that specific platform.
Sharing Only Your Content
You should share your content, but you should also make a point to include UGC (user-generated content) and other helpful information. For our clients, I’ll share posts that their customers tag them in. For Smarter Searches, I’ll share posts that our clients post about us or tag us in, as well as helpful information from a verified source – such as Google Ads, Facebook, or a thought leader in our field. This shows that we’re keeping up with essential players in the game and that we’re always willing and eager to learn, which is not only accurate and great for our clients and followers to see, it’s also highly beneficial. We help get the right messaging to the right people, and even better, we can learn from the posts we share.
Many people think that social media is easy to handle on their own, and in certain situations, that is entirely possible! However, in others, it’s wise to have someone with extensive knowledge and experience handle your social media. If the latter is the case, reach out to us. We have decades of experience curating appropriate content for our clients and ourselves. We know what to do and what to avoid, and we’d love to help your social media show that.
