Businesses or brands need to be active on social media (I.e Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, and Facebook) – but having your voice doesn't mean you can post anything recklessly.
Sure, it has the power to grow your brand or business, but when you do it wrong, it can also hurt your brand. In this article, we’re going to talk about the mistakes to avoid when doing them.
Here are some things you should never do, especially in 2022;
Sharing low-quality content
When it comes to visual content, Instagram is king. This platform is known for its cool user-generated photos and its capability to let people show their most beautiful images and videos.
The biggest social media mistake you can make is to neglect your photos, and videos and post low-quality ones. As a brand, you have to make sure that your images, videos, or content, in general, look professional. Make sure that you invest time into crafting and checking your content before you post them.
Not optimising bio
What’s your brand without explaining it? Yours need a proper description to be able to attract attention and have an impact on those who are interested in your service or product.
There are benefits to creating a good Instagram bio. This is the only place where you can add a link. You can also put your website link here, and that will allow you to get traffic from the platform. It’s also a great chance to put or add a call to action which will allow visitors to call or email you directly.
Buying followers and likes
Yes sure, having a lot of followers and likes is a good image for your business or brand, and buying them can be a huge temptation for some, but that doesn’t mean that you will have success when it comes to building a community.
It's a big no to use shortcuts on Instagram just to achieve the success or goal you’ve always wanted. The platform strategy is to have constant engagement with other users, and buying Instagram followers and likes make it less possible since they’re bots.
It would be too obvious if you have such a high follower count and like but low engagement at the same time. Imagine having those spammy comments as well. If you want more comments, followers and likes, there are a lot of options you can do such as running stories ad, pictures ad, videos, etc.
Not putting captions
Ignoring your Instagram captions is a big problem. Captions have the potential to add context to your videos, and images. They’re important when posting. Having longer captions as well provides your audience poor community with more information about the topic you’re posting. This is helpful since it’s hard to add links on Instagram captions. Grab your audience's attention and educate them with valuable content by taking advantage of the captions.
Not live streaming
It’s indeed a must to have it scheduled at least once or twice a week since it’s one of the most powerful tools on Instagram. When you go live on Instagram, your live feed jumps in front of every story making you grab your followers’ attention without worrying about not having to notice. It’s a great way to get your brand recognised and also to build brand awareness without having to pay for ads.
Not completing your page information
Your about section should contain a lot of information like your official brand name, business information, website and many more that you need to put. What’s in the business that will make them perceive you as a good company, business or brand? Try to answer this and put it on your information page.
Removing negative comments
While sometimes these negative comments can be bad for the brand, it’s also important to take note of them and learn from them.
You should take into consideration negative reviews since they can affect your brand image, and can become a total nightmare. Try to avoid these things by managing negative feedback by writing a short, non-confrontational explanation that you are going to consider it, apologising if it’s the case and better explaining the situation to also avoid complications in the long run.
Lack of value
People love tips and information that adds value. They hate being constantly bombarded with product pitches. Another reason why your community isn’t engaging with your content is that they don’t find value in it.
Post more about educational, helpful, interesting, entertaining content. In other words, these types of posts spark an emotional response from your audience.
Neglecting your community
It’s a must to engage and listen to your customers/ community because it boosts brand experience and that also increases customer loyalty and trust.
You create a relationship with them to foster brand loyalty and awareness. This can be done via marketing campaigns, listening to them and having a conversation since customers today decide when and how to follow or interact with brands or just completely ignore them.
Ignoring competitors
Learn from their mistakes. Try to learn and see their failures and successes. What’s their tactic? Or strategy? What’s their main platform? What are they not doing that you can?
Sometimes some competitors are good at showing how not to do. Analysing their ways can save you lots of trouble. Doing a competitor's research gives you enough data to back up your decisions when it comes to your brand.
Retweeting too often
Retweets are great, but if they are random and nothing related to the business or your brand, you need to stop them.
Use this option only when they mention your business.
Ignoring mentions
You have to respond to those getting in touch on Twitter, also you can retweet it. Because if you’re not doing it, your brand will look like it has bad service and that you’re not listening to your audience.
Tweeting the same thing
If you want to repost that post that gave you a lot of engagement, make sure you change the message because tweeting the same message over and over again can hurt your brand.
Treating it like other social media platforms
Every social platform is different, and Twitter isn’t the same as Facebook or Instagram. Try to keep your Twitter post concise and to the point. Don’t post long paragraphs.
Not joining the conversations
Join conversations on Twitter to get recognised. Conversations are happening all the time and it’s a nice way to build trust and relationships.
Take advantage of its direct messaging feature that allows you to have conversations with people.
Being too sales-y
Have you ever seen a video that’s trying to sell something from you? You often find it so annoying, isn’t it? Being “too sales-y” can not only affect your chance at closing but can also hurt your business reputation. Focus on serving, and not selling. Try to post more how-to’s, benefits or anything entertaining.
Using viral sounds in ads
This one is not a great strategy for running ads since viral sounds tend to go quickly. You don’t want your campaign to be one of those ads and also your audience might get tired of hearing it over and over again, and will end up skipping it.
Not using filters
Don’t be serious all the time, and be creative with your brand. This allows your audience to connect with your brand in a fun way. But also, if it’s a trend, it’s important to keep in mind your values, and strategy.
Not hopping on the trend
Trends are fun and it’s a great way to put your brand out there and get noticed. Use them intentionally. But also, be an early adopter and be one of the first few brands to use them so your audience looks to you as someone who pays attention. You also need to understand what is going to be lasting and what’s not.
Not using hashtags
Unlike other posts, hash-tagged posts had a 3x higher engagement rate. Hashtags are important to use on TikTok because it allows your brand to extend its reach and boost views and followers. It can help the TikTok algorithm decide who would be interested in watching your content on there for your page so take advantage of it.