Social media is the best way for promoting your business and gaining a trusted audience online. However, it’s not as simple as creating an account on Instagram or Facebook. You need to invest time to get your audience engaged and interested in what you have to say. Simply speaking, to know what to do and what to avoid is essential for your social media to work.
Here are some social media mistakes that you should definitely stay away from:
Underestimating the work involved: Creating an account on every social platform my not take long; but managing them all will. Before you create an account, answer this question: Do you have the time and resources to manage all your existing social media platforms, to share content on a regular basis and to keep your community engaged? Being realistic when evaluating your time and resources ensures that you can be successful on every social platform you choose to use.
Managing your own social media is not a nine to five job; you need to be present when your audience are. If you don’t have a dedicated social media manager and you are managing your own social media, you will need to take charge of content creation and monitoring of your social media feeds. This is no easy task, so ensure you put in the work if you want to get real results.
Not engaging with your audience: The failure to listen to or engage with your audience in a timely manner can be detrimental to your business. If your followers ask questions, post comments or share positive or negative feedback, you need to respond. While people appreciate you are not awake 24/7, it’s vital to respond to all questions and feedback in a timely manner.
Provide boring content: Content should be engaging, friendly and interesting. Providing your audience with boring, generic content is only going to send them elsewhere. Your key objective should be to get their attention and to stimulate engagement, and you will never be able to achieve this with boring content. Don’t know what type of content to share or where to find it? Simple; ask your audience!
Too many mentions and not enough value: If you are constantly promoting your brand without actually engaging with your audience, you might as stop now. While self-promotion is great when you are launching a new product, or promoting a special offer, there needs to be a balance between interesting content and marketing.
Need some advice? Follow the 80/20 rule: 80% interesting content-engagement and 20% promotion. It’s the first one that will get your audience interested in what you have to say.
Failing to plan: Some people can make the mistake of believing that because they are on social media, they will go viral. For that to happen, you first need to create a reason for that. You will build your audiences trust through great content and maybe one day, you will go viral.
By creating a social media calendar where you decide what to post, when and where, you can plan out your social media. Whatever your objectives are; to get more sales, to sell or to increase brand awareness, make sure you plan your content with them in mind. If you don’t set any objectives, how can you possibly measure the results?
Losing enthusiasm: One of the worst things you can do is to lose enthusiasm after a strong start. Many businesses have high expectations at the beginning, hoping that they will get thousands of followers in a few days or weeks or that their content will become viral overnight. Then, when they see that it doesn’t happen as quickly as they want it to, they lose focus. What businesses don’t realise is that if your enthusiasm fades, the momentum will also fade away. Stay focused with your social media and the results will be worth it!
Are you looking for a new job? Contact us at hello@trapezerecruitment.co.uk and like our Facebook page to receive regular new job alerts.
Are you an organisation looking for a new recruitment company? Contact us at hello@trapezerecruitment.co.uk.
