Social media is a great tool to promote your business and connect directly with your niche. It is an extension of your identity and is becoming an essential part of a business’ online presence.
With competition among businesses at an all-time high, more and more business owners are seeing the importance of social media outlets and signing up for accounts. But all too often, even with a good amount of time and effort invested in posting content, some social media accounts still fall short. If your business is successful, your social media should automatically be, too, right? Not necessarily.
Here are 5 ways you could be missing the mark with your social media:
Using poor quality photos/videos
Social media is a highly visual platform, so it’s important to make sure that the way you reach people visually is effective. People relate the quality of what you put on social media to the competency of your business as a whole. While quality photos and videos portray a sense of trust with your audience, subpar content could relay a feeling that your company isn’t top-notch. So, take the time to invest your time into making sure what you’re putting out there is worthy of your brand. Even if you’re taking photos on your phone, there are some great editing apps out there to upgrade your images!
Using photos that aren’t yours
This is one of the biggest mistakes you can make. Not only does it lack creativity, but it also isn’t legal. Think about it: Taking someone’s photo and calling it your own is the same thing as putting your name on an artist’s painting. It’s a form of stealing, it takes away legitimacy, and it also puts you at risk of being in hot water legally. So, be safe and create your own content. If someone has posted content on social media, there are safe ways to share. On Facebook, you have the option to “share” a post. On Twitter, you can “Retweet.” On Instagram, there is a way to repost a photo giving credit to the original creator. For each outlet, it is best to read their rules for proper sharing.
Using the same message across all platforms
There are countless social media platforms out there, and they are all unique. Managing a company’s social media presence can be a time-consuming task, so a common pitfall of social media managers is scheduling the same exact post to go out on every platform you use. While this saves time, it isn’t effective in the long run. It’s important to learn how each social media outlet works and treat it as the individual platform it is.
Posting at the wrong times/frequency
There’s nothing more frustrating than putting time and effort into an awesome post and it get little to no traffic or interaction, right? When it comes to posting content, timing is everything, and the best times to post are unique to your audience. It’s true that popular times people check their accounts are when they wake up, when they go to lunch, and in the afternoon or the end of the day. But other than that, it depends on who your audience is and their habits. A good way to learn your audience is to track the analytics of your posts. When do they interact and engage? When are they unresponsive? When you learn their patterns, you’ll get an idea of the best times to put information out there. It’s also just as important to know how often to post.
According to Buffer, you should post on:
- Twitter – 3 times per day
- Facebook – 2 times per day
- LinkedIn – 1 time per day
- Google+ – 3 times per day, at most
- Pinterest – 5 times per day
- Instagram – 1.5 times per day
- Blog – 1-2 times per week
Not being relatable
Social media is all about connection. People crave community and relationships with others on social media. This applies to other people, businesses, nonprofits, bands, celebrities, etc. The cool thing about social media is that it gives people a look into the lives of others they wouldn’t normally get to see. Social media followers crave authenticity. It’s so important to show that your business has a personality. It gives your audience something to connect to and shows that you’re more than a name, a logo, and the services you offer.
We know creating an effective social media presence takes work. That’s why we offer social media marketing services. Contact us to see how we can increase your audience and online presence. And take a look at a previous blog post where we highlight local businesses using social media to their advantage.