In today’s business-centric world, social media has great potential. The way we use social media platform can either be an asset or a liability to your business reputation. So we need to be very cautious about what we are posting to our followers, one wrong post and our visitors and followers can turn their back on our business. Making silly mistakes with your media marketing strategy can cost you your online reputation.
This article will guide you through different social media marketing mistakes you should avoid cautiously.
Top Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid:
Offensive Material:
This one is basically a common knowledge, yet some people still feel the need to post such contents or posts. No social media manager would deliberately post offensive contents. The reason behind an offensive post posted by your media manager, either they didn’t believe it was offensive or clearly a mistake.
Some offensive materials, which should be avoided:
• Racist materials.
• Nudity.
• Sexting.
• Pretentious talks about another company.
These are some example of what not to post.
Ignoring Your Audiences:
The basic point behind your social media marketing is to engage more and more audiences. Unfortunately many social media marketing agencies don’t understand these and don’t take the time to interact with their client’s followers and viewers. When you ignore your followers it can stain your reputation indirectly.
Ignoring your followers includes:
• Not responding to posted questions on your social media platform.
• Not responding to comments posted on your post.
• Ignoring feedback
• Not interacting with your followers and viewers.
Posting Wrong Content:
A major way to destroy your reputation is posting poor contents on social media. Mistakes in your texts, comments or any other posts can lead to your followers, thinking you aren’t capable enough to handle a business responsibility, which means they will assume you aren’t professional. So, always make sure your every outlet on your social media is grammatically correct and has no typos, before posting.
Over Posting:
Over-posting is a big issue which makes your followers unfollow you because they don’t want to see too many contents or posts, or simply are offended due to constant notification. While it’s essential for your media marketing success, that you post regularly while keeping your followers in the loops. But over posting causes irritations and discomfort at a psychological level. Too much content can have negatively impact on your brand.
Ill-Timed Online Content:
Another content related mistake is to post contents at wrong times. Posting content in the late hours or exceptionally early will reduce your chance to be seen by the majority of your followers.
The best time to post content on your social media is around the first half on the day. This is when most people scroll their social media pages. And posting your content at early half of the day will make sure that your viewers see them in their news feed as a fresh post.
Not Creating Content Which Shows an Expert Level of Knowledge
When your media manager is posting any content or post on social media, it’s very important that the write up should be written like an expert. As for your followers, you are one. So if your posts or social media outlets fail to satisfy their expectation, soon you will lose their trust and will fail to attract further credibility with them. And surely it’s huge negative impact on your brand’s reputation. To maintain the bond with your viewers, first, you need to build a reputation and then properly guard it. And Content is the king when it comes to building a positive reputation. So construct value added contents.
Poor Handling of Negative Feedback
It’s really hard to detain yourself from biting back a harsh comment. But this isn’t actually a proper way to handle negative feedback.
Negativities will only result in more negative comments against your brand, which is actually your big loss. Instead, approach negative comments with polite and positive spin. And don’t forget to thank them for reaching out to you.
Not Considering Your Audience
Another big issue that can damage your reputation is not considering or track what your viewers or audiences are posting about your brand. This kind of negative impacts comes from a friend, family, or an acquaintance, posting inappropriate contents and tagging you or your brand in that post. Although you or your media manager didn’t post it, it can still cause a negative impact on your business’s reputation.
Regarding this there are two other related mistakes that many social media marketers make:
• Copy pasting while answering your followers on your social media posts. That’s offering canned response.
• Not maintaining a post or response schedule, that is not posting after a regular interval or not responding your followers timely.
Buying likes or followers
Some business or media marketing agencies still believe that buying likes and followers are harmless. But before investing your money in this, consider the following facts about buying likes and followers on social media. Fake fans will never engage with your page, which will be an indication that your content isn’t interesting enough. This will soon lead to an overall algorithmic decrease in your future visibility. So, it’s better to construct interesting contents and to interact with real followers. So that interested followers can make your page a better version.
Over- Promoting your products:
Some Media marketing agencies will try to convince you to use your social media as a channel for pushing your products constantly. Believe us, this approach is nothing more than nagging. Social selling is about building long term relationship with your followers and turns them into customers. Overdoing your social media marketing strategies can cost you your reputation. So abusing your social media platform and turning it into a classified advertising page will not satisfy your long-term goal, which is turning your followers into money paying customers.
Not properly supervising your social media managers:
So, you have trusted someone with your brand’s reputation who claims to be a professional in social media marketing. And now you are thinking of taking the back seat right? No, we don’t think it’s a good idea to execute.
As, your media manager constantly needs your approvals and feedbacks. Without your proper guidance, he will never understand your vision with your brand and will end up communicating a wrong message with your followers. Without this you need to monitor their online activities, just to make sure they value your money.
Sabyasachi, Digital Marketing Consultant, Magne Consulting is a passionate digital marketer with over 8 years of experience in various aspects of digital marketing including User Design, Walkthrough and Channel Management, Digital Strategy and more. He likes to write about the various aspects of social media marketing tips based on his experiences.