6 Things Your Business is Doing Wrong on Social Media

When you first start posting and engaging on social media, you aren't sure what to expect. You're jumping in blind and hoping for the best.

Hopefully, once you've been around the social media world once or twice, you see the advantage of posting on social media or you make the decision to give up, you don't see a reason to continue.

Before you give up completely or continue in the wrong direction, social media isn't just about knowing when to post. It's about developing a deeper connection and relationship with your fans and followers.

Did you know that social media actually has a 100% lead to close rate than outbound marketing? Don't just look at social media as something that you have to do. It should be something that you want to do.

Here's a great quote by Matt Dickman, “Social media isn’t the end-all-be-all, but it offers marketers unparalleled opportunity to participate in relevant ways. It also provides a launchpad for other marketing tactics. Social media is not an island. It’s a high-power engine on the larger marketing ship.”

So, before you throw in the towel, here are six things you shouldn't be doing on social media.

6 Social Media Mistakes You Should Stop Making

1. Don't Have a Strategy

How do you know what you should and shouldn't be doing? In most cases you don't because you never outlined a strategy.

You shouldn't just post when you feel like it and post what you feel like at that moment. There is a science behind social media.

Facebook: The timing of Facebook posts get the most engagement Monday through Thursday between the hours of 10AM and 4PM. When developing your strategy for Facebook, the ideal post frequency is around 1 a day.

Twitter: The timing of tweets on Twitter get the most engagement Monday through Thursday between the hours of 1PM and 3PM. Even though that time increment has the most engagement tweets posted at 5PM have the highest percentage of retweets. Another question people inquire about is how often they should be posting on Twitter. The best frequency is between 1 and 4 tweets per hour.

LinkedIn: Engagement will be a little different on LinkedIn because you’re trying to grab the attention of company executives. The most effective times for posting are before and after business hours between 7AM and 9AM and then around 5PM and 6PM from Tuesday to Thursday.

You need to develop a strategy that outlines when you're going to post every day and what types of content you're going to publish. Your posts shouldn't always be promotional.

2. Selling First

Social media isn't a platform for you to sell yourself 24/7. Social media is an outlet for developing connections. Don't just push your product or service in front of them. If you're doing so, it's no reason why your fan and follower count keeps decreasing.

It's not all about the number of fans and followers you have but the number of connections and promoters of your company you've created.

Here's a great quote by Amber Cadabra, "Quit counting fans, followers, and blog subscribers like bottle caps. Think, instead, about what you're hoping to achieve with and through the community that actually cares about what you're doing."

You want to be human. It’s important to note that only 10% of the content your sharing should actually be promotional.

3. Not Just Anyone Should Be Posting on Social Media

Whose scheduling your social media posts? A social media manager, an intern, your sales manager, or do you have no clue? You shouldn't just give the responsibility of developing connections to just anyone.

Giving an intern the task of scheduling your social media posts might sound like a fabulous idea at the time, but in the bigger scope of things they don't know anything about your company.

Ideally, your social media presence should be handled by a bona fide social media manager that knows the ins and outs of your company as well as the needs and pain points of your buyer personas.

4. Boring Industries Don't Need Boring Profiles

Just because you're in a boring industry that doesn't mean you need to be boring. Show your personality. Have fun with your social media presence. Develop a personality outside of your product or service.

A great example of a company in a boring industry is Old Spice. There is only so much you can say about soap. The brand was able to build an identity that steered away from their identity of only being a product for older generations. Old Spice then went in a different direction by employing a unique campaign that speaks to a younger generation that was technologically sophisticated.

The campaign was no longer about the product. They took a unique approach to talking with their target audience. It's not about changing your logo, but about creating an experience that pulls your audience in.

Winning isn’t everything, said the sad, girlfriendless sports loser as he shuffled off the field and smelled bad. https://t.co/6D4tCNs2d5

— Old Spice (@OldSpice) September 8, 2013

5. Whoops!

Companies seem to be making social media mistakes left and right. Unfortunately, there is nothing worse than posting the wrong tweet to your company account or posting something that is incredible insulting to a portion of your audience.

Posting the wrong tweet is a quick way to lose the trust of your fans and followers. You might also receive some backlash from the event.

If it happens once, you can apologize and use social media to diffuse the situation, but it shouldn't be something that happens multiple times. You don't want end up with the social media reputation of Kenneth Cole.

When scheduling your social media tweets it is safe to say that you should stay away from posting about the following topics:

• Politics

• Religion

• Political situations

• Controversial topics

• Anything about your competitors stinking

• And anything that puts your company in a negative light

6. Ignoring Your Audience

If you think that there is this social media fairy that will respond to any ignored comments or questions left by your audience you have been mislead. And that person has left you out to dry.

Your audience doesn't want to be ignored. The whole concept of social media is to be social. To take an active role in participating in a conversation with them. Being able to develop relationships.

What about negative comments left by your audience? Social media isn't black and white; you cannot just ignore or delete a comment. Your audience will take it personally if they see that you've deleted their comment.

It won't just go away. Just ask British Airways. Your audience might just create a campaign of their own, telling people not to use your product or service.

Customer service is becoming a big part of social media.

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