Top 10 Social Media Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Business

If you partied so hard last night that you have no idea whose house you’re waking up in, that’s a big enough problem to deal with. But when you find all the embarrassing details of your forgotten night posted all over Facebook for the whole world to see, things have just gotten a whole lot worse.

Within the context of social media, even a minor mistake becomes a major one. In this same way, mistakes your company makes on social media accounts can hurt your business much more than other types of mistakes.

Fortunately for you, we’ve collected the most common mistakes businesses make on social media right here in this article so you don’t have to learn them by experience. Use this guide to avoid the 10 most common social media mistakes.

Not Planning Ahead

A lot of companies using social media have no idea what they’re even doing there. Businesses jump on the social media bandwagon to expand their web presence but have no plan or goals for their social media campaign. As a result, they post unfocused, untargeted content their audience doesn’t care about.

Before you get your company on social media, figure out what you’re trying to accomplish. The tips below will help with this.

Losing Focus On What Matters

Some companies get so hyperfocused on boosting their social media metrics, like subscribers, likes, and shares, they don’t realize it’s not doing them any good. Social media metrics, in and of themselves, will not inherently help your business.

The only way these will help is if they convert to some metrics your business actually needs, like increased store traffic or customer satisfaction. The idea is to boost your business with social media, not the other way around.

Go back to the planning stage. Before you focus on getting followers and shares, have a plan for why you are doing so. Otherwise, you’re just wasting company time.

Trying to Sell

On the other hand, some companies are too focused on getting results for their business through social media. Who would want to follow a social media account that does nothing but push them to buy things?

Companies who do this fail to realize the point of their social media account. The point is to set up a publicized communication line between you and your customers.

Unlike your weekly ad and your website, your Facebook page is where you and your customers can converse and get to know each other. This helps you learn who your audience is and what they want. And it helps your customers be heard and resolve issues.

2-way engagement with your customers should be the primary function of your social media campaign.

Being Unresponsive

Along those lines, you need to be present on your account for more than just posting content. In fact, you should be responding to comments much more often than you are posting content.

If you ignore your social media audience, they’ll ignore you. There is no quicker way to kill engagement on your social media account.

Ignoring, Deleting or Arguing With Negative Feedback

This is counterintuitive but very important. If someone is trash talking your company, your staff, your products or anything having to do with you, don’t delete them and don’t argue with them.

Remember, this is social media; your audience is watching. If they see you delete negative feedback, they will think you don’t care what people have to say. If they see you defending yourself, even if you are justified, they will think you are immature and defensive.

Instead, respond politely, and immediately, and thank the customer for their feedback. Tell them you are open to all kinds of criticism.

Then try to resolve their problem. Do this on social media if you can or help them get to the appropriate conflict resolution department of your business.

Ignoring Most Social Media Channels

There are more social media out there than just Facebook and Twitter, a lot more. Most companies are missing out on huge audiences by not branching out.

The most important, often-neglected social media are Instagram, Pinterest, and YouTube. These three, in particular, are great for showing off how your products can be used. 93% of Pinterest users use Pinterest to plan purchases and 87% go on to make the purchase.

But YouTube, unlike other social media, is literally made for advertising. It’s very easy and very cheap to promote your brand, products, and services on YouTube. Use it to put how-to videos, side-by-side comparisons, unboxing videos and other reviews in front of millions of viewers.

Posting The Same Content on Every Channel

That said, make sure your content on each social media channel is exclusive. Why bother having multiple channels if they all say the same thing? Your subscribers would have no reason to follow any of your other accounts.

Each channel should have something unique to offer. Consider putting a different person or team in charge of each of your different social media accounts.

Posting Too Much of the Same Content

Not varying your content with pictures, videos and anecdotes make for a pretty boring social media page. So does posting about only one or two topics over and over again.

Try to make some posts that are informative, some that are fun and some that are helpful. A really easy and effective way to vary your content is to have different departments in your business contributing to the same account.

Also, while under-posting can lose followers, posting too much can drive them away as well. Over-posting gives customers an exhausting amount of Facebook notifications.

Not Using Social Media Tools

There are tons of social media tools available to make managing your various accounts faster, easier and more effective. These tools can help you respond to comments faster and keep track of certain metrics. Some are even free.

Spreading Yourself Thin

It’s possible your only mistake is trying to handle your social media campaign by yourself. In the above steps, we’ve given you the know-how to avoid common mistakes.

If you’ve avoided them all, great! But maybe you have better things to do.

Sometimes, a business can get so caught up in SEO and social media campaigns that other aspects of the business get neglected. If this is happening to you, you may want to consider outsourcing.

There are a number of SEO and marketing companies that can take over your social media campaign for you. If it has become too big of a time commitment for you to handle, outsource it to a good company.

This company is a good example. See their website for more info about what an SEO company can do for your social media campaign.

Social Media Mistakes Will Kill Your Company

Don’t let social media mistakes ruin your company. Now that you know the most common ones, avoid them like the plague. This will pave the way for a successful social media campaign.

For related content, check out 5 Mistakes That are Killing Your Search Visibility.