Regardless of the industry/niche, social media mistakes usually emerge from one core desire: to reach as many potential customers as possible, and do so quickly.

Here are some of the factors that could prevent you from reaching your marketing potential:

• Information overwhelm
• Your competition, and the strength of their social media presence
• A chronic lack of time, which often results in unproductive multitasking

Luckily, we gladly go in depth here at CanSpace so you don’t have to, and we hope you’ll have many “AHA!” moments with these hand-picked insights! Surely, you’ll gain a better perspective on your social media efforts and social media mistakes you might be making.

After reading, go ahead and fine-tune your social media strategy. Even slight changes can help you reach the traffic (and profit) your business deserves!

5 Mistakes You Might be Making on Social Media

1. Posting just for the sake of posting

In order to be successful on any social media network, your business has to be visible. And as the number of social media users rises each day, such tasks comes close to impossible. Hungry for traffic and in desperate need of leads, businesses turn to spam-like posting.

Now, an aggressive posting schedule might seem like a logical solution, but keep in mind that it could harm your marketing efforts. Only if each and every post of yours bring value to its readers then is posting throughout the day fine. However you’ll likely agree that such a scenario is highly unlikely to happen.

Therefore, let’s see which actions should be avoided on any social site:

• Overburdening posts with promotion and sales links (once in a while is recommended, but not all the time)
• If you’re using a social media scheduling tool, such as Buffer or Hootsuite, avoid posting a lot of content, and then forgetting to engage with your audience
• Posting irrelevant content, meaning, not relevant to your business/offer

To sum this up – before hitting the “Publish” or “Schedule” button, ask yourself:

1. Is this content relevant, interesting, and useful to my audience?
2. Am I approaching my fans in a purely promotional, or engaging way? (Note: social media is all about interaction and communication!)
3. How often is too often? (Tip: see how often your most successful competitors are posting, or even better – learn the specifics of posting rhythm for different social media networks)

Takeaway: avoid posting solely for the sake of posting something. Don’t forget that you’re approaching real humans, not machines. And people will value the effort you’re making.

2. Having a weak strategy or no strategy at all

Would you head on a long trip without a map? Or start building a house without a plan?

The same applies to any marketing campaign – it easily fails without a clear strategy. Without a plan, you might spread yourself too thin, and miss on quality traffic. Here’s how you can set your social media strategy for success:

1. Before you even get started with social media, make sure that your business’s offer is clear and appealing
2. Make sure you are available to answer your audience’s questions, especially if you’re just starting out with social media marketing
3. Think about what you want to achieve with social media (be as specific as you can). Some of the possible goals are:
   1. Gaining more followers – raising the awareness about your brand
   2. Getting new sales leads
   3. Raising your brand’s authority in the industry, etc.
4. Once your main goal is set, move on to defining your target audience (also, be as specific as you can)
5. Lastly, see how much time you’re able to invest, and who will be working in your social media endeavours.

These are the basic steps, in the order of appearance:

1. Validate your offer
2. Be available to answer questions
3. Set clear goals for social media campaigns
4. Define your target audience
5. Organize your time and team efficiency

Congrats on setting a clear social media plan! The more measurable your goals are, the better your results will be. And while holding on to a single general strategy, don’t hesitate to find one social media network that works the best for you.

Takeaway: A social media effort without a solid strategy is destined to fail. Plan ahead, do not waste precious time and resources on aimless activities.

3. Ignoring the negative feedback

This social media mistake is so widespread that we believe you see it every day. Perhaps you’ve done this yourself. Don’t worry though, you can fix it rather easily!

Since the topic of social media communication can fill dozens of books, we’ll simply highlight the problem, and offer some solutions.

How do most companies deal with negative comments?
They either:

• ignore them completely, or
• they apologize right away, even if it’s not their fault.

Both approaches are wrong!

Instead of hiding in the dark or avoiding conflict, companies should embrace negative situations as a chance to openly communicate and improve.

What most customers expect is premium service and support. Let them know that you’ve taken their comment seriously, and are willing to improve. Alright, but what about mean comments, which simply criticize the company?

The best approach to mean comments is:

1. Engage immediately
2. Stay calm
3. Do not delete the negative comment, and
4. Always, always answer politely

Use an opportunity to connect with your happy and loyal fans, and to keep a positive approach. Additionally, create a policy that will address social media in particular – what kind of a language is not acceptable, what kind of behaviour will not be tolerated, and similar.

Takeaway: Always respond to positive, but especially to negative comments. Honest engagement will improve your customer service, bring you closer to people, and boost your authority.

4. Posting on too many networks

We’ve already briefly touched upon this problem, but such a common social media mistake deserves its own section.

Probably out of fear they’ll miss out on a portion of traffic, companies tend to spread themselves too thin. The entire wide world of social media definitely seems tempting, but for business purposes: staying focused is crucial.

Having brand accounts on too many social media sites results in:

1. Your fans not knowing where to find you, and which channel to follow
2. A waste of resources and time
3. Difficulty to provide premium engagement
4. Confusion when the time comes for analytics

Takeaway: Unless you’re a large corporation with entire teams dedicated to social media marketing – stick to one or two networks. Limit your efforts, and watch the response from your audience improve with time.

5. Trying to speak to everyone

As a final cherry on top, the most common mistake in social media marketing.

Remember when we mentioned how important it is to clearly define your target audience? On social media networks, speaking to the wrong audience might sink the entire strategy.

No amount of value-filled content can fill that gap! Here’s how to fail-proof your social media plans, and make sure you’re not heading in the wrong direction:

• Identify who your target audience is – do your best to visualize your perfect customer/client
• Create a persona – go into details, and set your target fan’s age, gender, occupation, interests, purchasing habits, favorite social networks, etc.
• Align the persona with your existing customers
• Start with only one persona, and create new ones as your social media presence develops (note: most brands do just fine with a single buyer persona).

Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed this quick, yet informative overview! As you learned, the most common social media mistakes are:

1. Simple, but they carry serious consequences
2. Easy and simple to fix!

Without further ado, use this gained knowledge to begin building your social media empire. But remember, each channel must lead to a solid website. So, make sure your domain properly reflects the greatness of your business, and that your hosting service is reliable. Yet another mistake most businesses make, but you don’t have to!