7 Social Media Mistakes You Don’t Want To Make

Social media is an amazing platform that is used by lots of people. However, many people misuse social media because they make silly mistakes. As a result of these mistakes, the conversions tend to suffer.

Social media was something I always understood. I was just really lucky to have grown up with technology and social media the way I did. The social media boom took place as soon as I really understood using the internet.

Kids nowadays understand technology even better. A survey recently showed that more kids knew how to use an iPad than they knew how to tie their own shoes. Times are changing.

In this article, I discuss 7 social media mistakes you don’t want to make:

1. Doing ‘Social Media’

Social media should be used to humanize your brand or services. However, too many people label social media as a marketing job. When you try to ‘do’ social media, you find it hard to get results. However, if you spend that time being social like you would in real life, social media can provide you amazing results.

2. Trying To Be Active Everywhere

Unless you’re a massive corporation, you don’t have any reason to be active on all of the social media platforms. You would rather do really well and convert on a few platforms than do poorly on all the platforms. For me, I found out Twitter, Facebook & Instagram were the best channels. I’ve stuck to those channels for my professional offerings.

3. Diving In Without A Plan

Before you dive into a social network, you really need to understand a few things. Ask yourself who your target audience is, why this is a good platform to find them and how you plan to reach them appropriately. If you’re not able to find a good answer to all three of these questions, your social media campaign will NOT be successful.

4. Inconsistent Brands From Platform To Platform

This was a mistake I made early on as well. Unless you’re trying to run conversion tests, you shouldn’t have different profile pictures, about me’s, links, and other information on different social media platforms. Your brand should NOT be inconsistent through different social networks. Be consistent!

5. Don’t Abuse Hashtags 

Hashtags are useful for two things when sending out posts. You can be funny with it or you can summarize a few topics that your post covers. However, there are too many people that make a post like the one below:

“50% off pizza at our store today. #Pizza #Deals #California #Marketing #Corporate #Swag #TBT”

Nothing pisses me off more than to see a post like this. What does your pizza deal have to do with corporate, swag, or throwback thursday? Absolutely nothing. These types of posts will quickly cheapen your brand and have you looking foolish. Avoid it at all costs.

6. Lacking Call To Actions In Post

You need to create a funnel out of your social media platforms. Each time a new visitor comes to your profile, you should have some sort of pre-created funnel to convert that user. Mine is pretty simple as shown below:

Read biography –> Click website link –> Array of ways to convert through my site

Not only that, but you should have a conversion funnel for each of your posts. Many people make great posts, but leave out a call to action causing them to lose out on a lot of potential opportunities.

7. Ignoring Negativity

On social media, people feel like they can say just about anything to you because they’re hiding behind the keys of a message board. However, as an organization, you cannot ignore rude or negative comments. I get negative comments all the time through social media. Instead of hiding or running from it, I tackle it head on. I find a clever way to tackle the comments.

Conclusion

Social media is something that requires a lot of patience, practice and persistence. If you manage to balance those 3 things, you’ll eventually be successful. In this article, I discussed 7 social media mistakes you don’t want to make.

photo credit: courosa via photopin cc