Five Examples of What Not to Do on Social Media
Social media has transformed the way people interact with their peers and businesses alike. Through social media, more people are taking to the public light to express opinions, find new information and reach companies that they may have never heard of otherwise. While this powerful channel has taken the internet and people’s daily lives by storm, many small businesses still struggle to understand the best approach to harnessing the full power of the social media networks.
There are a number of tips and tricks to learn about how to use social media networks to your advantage, but there is still quite a bit of confusion over whether people are doing these things correctly or concern that they might be doing some things wrong. For this reason, knowing what not to do may actually give a clearer signal of what works and what does not.
Here are five things to avoid doing in your social media marketing.
- Do not take a shotgun approach to finding the best network for your efforts – One of the first mistakes many businesses make when starting a social media strategy is taking a shotgun approach and getting on board with as many social media networks as possible. When you use too many social media networks at once, finding your niche and creating a strong presence in any one of them becomes more difficult. Instead, start your approach by joining only one of two main networks, then learn and grow from there.
- Do not wait for others to share your content – One of the biggest reasons social media is so powerful is because of the ease of passing along information. This helps businesses go viral and creates an easy way for people to spread the word about a company through value added information, pictures and videos. For large businesses, this is easy because the reputation of the brand is already there. For small businesses, getting people to share information can be more difficult. Instead of making the mistake of sitting around waiting for this information to be shared, it is essential for businesses to ask for the and drive people to post their content.
- Do not expect too much too soon – Do you see your favorite brands, competition or larger companies engaging with their community, then try to mimic this behavior to strengthen your own social media efforts? When you have a community already in place, it becomes more important to manage these people. However, without a community in place, your priorities must be more focused on growing rather than managing.
- Do not trust your social media marketing to anyone inexperienced – There are a large number of social media gurus available for little to no money, but inexperience frequently leads to mistakes. Instead, it is important for your small business to work with a person or marketing firm that is well-versed in how to make social media work well specifically for a small business in your position.
- Do not be afraid to measure your results – Many people believe that viewing the return on investment of social media is close to impossible. While this has a lot of truth to it, there are analytics that you can measure to still understand what works and what doesn’t. Monitoring engagement and traffic to your website can help you to know what people like and what people shy away from.
Social media is a difficult new marketing strategy for many people to understand and embrace fully. Infintech Designs can help you get started with social media in a way that is more effective and allows you to avoid these common mistakes.
