There are a ton of social media mistakes that small businesses make that you should absolutely avoid. But most have no idea what those mistakes are, so it’s hard to avoid them. In an attempt to give you a hand, here are some of the biggest:
Underestimating the Commitment
One of the biggest social media mistakes that businesses of all sizes make is the honest commitment that running successful social media channels takes.
Social media is a big undertaking, industry-standard tends to say that a well-run social channel requires at a minimum one hour per day of work. If you pre-plan and strategize you can cut some of this time down, but there’s no guarantee.
And when it comes to social media, having no social media channels tends to be preferred against having poorly run channels. It’s just not worth the brand hit.
Ditching the Strategy
Your social media requires strategy. Another big one of the social media mistakes that businesses make is ditching the strategy. They tend to assume if they post when it comes to them or they “have something good” they’ll be OK. That is not the case.
Without a social strategy, your social media will be a hot mess. There won’t be any rhyme or reason, just content with no direction. That’s definitely not a winning strategy.
Spamming Your Audience
There is such a thing as too much promotion. You can definitely spam your audience with WAY too much about yourself, your business and your content and services.
Spamming their audience is one of the big social media mistakes that happens out there for both businesses and on a personal level. And this mistake is totally avoidable, especially if you have a plan.
A great rule to avoid this is the rule of thirds, for every self-promoting post you put out there you need to do three interactions that aren’t self-serving.
Not Interacting With Your Audience
Social media is, by nature, a social business. That means you have to interact with your audience to get its true rewards.
This is one of those HUGE social media mistakes that almost every company makes. They rest on the ideas if you build it, they will come, but in social media, if they come and you don’t talk to them, you lose.
Interacting with your audience is way more important than even posting good content in a lot of cases. You NEED to interact with your audience.
Defining Your Target Audience
Another of the big social media mistakes is that businesses try to market to everyone. But a message aimed at everyone will truly reach no one.
If you want to be successful on social media, you really do need to define your target audience. Avoid putting content out there for everyone.
What social media mistakes do you see business make? Share them in the comments below!
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Tae started out as a journalist before following the money into the corporate world. But it turns out that the grass isn’t always greener and now you can find her spending most of her time writing about all the things she loves. Namely, money, travel and business with a hefty dose of self-deprecating humor. She is a podcast fanatic, blogging aficionado and loves to find new ways to turn passions into cold hard cash!
