9 Social Media Mistakes That Destroy Your Marketing

Do you make these social media mistakes?

Want to know how to use social media more efficient?

You can have many social media accounts, but still no traffic to your website, no followers and no engagements.

It doesn’t mean that social media stopped working. It just needs a right approach.

To make changes in your marketing strategy, first, stop making these 9 social media mistakes.

1. Having incomplete profile

Your social media profile is vital. Many people never saw you in person. Through your profile, they get to know who you are and what you do. However, it’s often left incomplete or even empty.

Consider as you give the first impression through it. Its goal is to make people pay attention to your social activities and convince to follow you.

When someone gets to your profile, there are only a few seconds for him or her to decide should they follow you or not. You avatar, cover, and bio should show that you are a competent, reliable and likable person.

2. Having too many social media accounts

One of the mistakes that people make is they create accounts on many social media channels, but don’t really work on them. Then they think social media marketing doesn’t work and leave them all.

Instead, if you are just starting out and not sure what social media network to choose, you can try several, then pick 1-2 which you want to focus on. Having only a few accounts, be consistent and communicative there better, then having many accounts and don’t work on them.

3. Sharing your blog post only one time

Another social media mistake is sharing your blog post only once after it got published. You spent a lot of time and put an effort in writing your post, but most of your audience won’t see it. Social media feed is updating very fast.

Schedule to publish your post for the different time within several days.

Here is an example from CoSchedule how it will help you to double the traffic.

Sharing your post add some variety to the description. There are a few examples of message types you can use as needed:

• Straight and Easy: Post Title + Link
• The Question: Ask an engaging question to stir conversation
• Cite a Fact: Share a fact or figure that is included in your post
• Share a Quote: Grab a pull-quote from your article and turn it into a social message
• Add Intrigue: Write a teaser message that grabs the attention of your readers

4. Wrong hashtag’s usage

Hashtags help easier to find your content on social media channel. If you don’t use it at all, you miss the opportunity to get discovered by more people. When someone is interesting in relevant posts, he may find your content through the search of the social network.

Another mistake is using too many of them in the post, which also looks like spam. Learn more about using hashtags to increase more traffic in this ultimate guide to hashtags.

5. Don’t engage with the audience

People want to be heard and noticed. If you don’t engage with them, it may seem that you don’t care.

Communicating with your followers is the key to building the relationship with people. Quickly respond to them messages, participate in the conversations, and make positive and intelligent comments on them posts.

6. Don’t include images to the post

Including images to the posts increase its likes and shares. The picture gets people attention. It’s easier to look at the picture then read the text.

Tweets with images increase retweets by 150%

Facebook posts with the images receive more likes and comments than the average post.

7. Don’t post consistently

When you post rarely and randomly, your followers will stop paying attention to you and may even unfollow you.

If you expect people to read you and engage with you on social media, consider regularly sharing something relevant. Posting once a week won’t help you to grow your followers and credibility.

A team from Buffer.com suggest this starting point:

• Post to Twitter at least 5x a day. If you can swing up to 20 posts, you might be even better off.
• Post to Facebook up to 2x a day.
• Post to LinkedIn 1x per day.

A helpful post by Constant Contact added the following suggestions for Pinterest and Google+

• Post to Google+ up to 2x per day.
• Post to Pinterest up to 2x per day.

And an ideal Instagram schedule, according to Forbes, looks like this:

• Post to Instagram 1.5x per day

8. Too much selling and self-promotion

Posting much promotional content gives the impression that you spam people. Even if the product or service you offer may be helpful for them, first, it is about the connection between you and your followers.

Social media gives you an opportunity to bring together a group of people who will like your business and will be more loyal to pay for your products.

Mix your promotional content with the useful information, which helps them, suggest resources and solutions, inspire them.

9. Buying followers

Buying followers can increase the numbers, but it doesn’t mean that anyone will read your messages and engage with your content.

If they won’t care about your content and business why do you need them? Also, if people will know that you are buying followers, it’s minus to your reputation.

Instead, focus on building community. If your social media is interesting, people will follow you.

What other social media mistakes affected your marketing? If you have any questions about the subject of this post, let me know in a comment below.

Marina Barayeva

Marina Barayeva is an international speaker and coach who helps women entrepreneurs become recognized experts and confidently sell their services. She is also a TEDx speaker, has presented to audiences in Asia and North America, and has been featured in such media as ArtPeople, CCTV, China Radio International, and others.