Brands can often have a love/hate relationship with social media. Even worse, they can fall victim to certain social media bad habits that prevent them from building meaningful relationships.
Social can bring out the best in brands – revealing their human, funny and interesting sides, or, it can bring out their less admirable qualities – their anger, insensitivity, and negativity.
Companies lose countless production hours every year to employees wasting time on the wrong social media sites. On the other hand, some businesses can increase exposure and grow revenue thanks to well executed social campaigns.
Now, we aren’t saying you should come up with a bunch of half-baked social media resolutions as you barrel into a new strategy. But maybe now is a good time for you to consider what’s working and what’s not regarding your brand’s social media use.
1. Overselling
Unless you are Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon, not everybody wants to buy what you have to sell. Stop overselling your prospects. And definitely, stop requiring your salespeople to make sales-y posts on their personal pages.
A good rule of thumb is the 80/20 rule – meaning your posts should be 80 percent of helpful content and 20 percent promotional content. People use social media to learn, to have fun and, most importantly, to build relationships. If you continually sell, sell, sell on your page, you won’t give your fans an opportunity to know and develop trust with your brand.
2. Inconsistency
This might be the hardest habit to break. It takes effort and foresight to plan and carry out a social media strategy – but it’s worth it in the end.
Consistency builds momentum and shows your followers what they can expect from your brand. It also forms trust and can let you develop authority in your niche market.
Try to plan out your social media strategy in advance and use a scheduling tool to for easy, time-saving posting each week.
3. Text Only
Long text social media posts are boring – and so 2016. They rarely succeed at holding your reader’s attention.
Be sure to add variety to your posts with eye-capturing images, videos or infographics. Multimedia will help increase engagement and gain you more shares.
Bonus: Your Pick
What’s the most annoying habit that you’ve seen on social media? Now’s your chance to share your what “grinds your gears” with other brands’ social media posting. Feel free to comment. We’d love to know your thoughts!
Remember – strategically using your social media accounts can pay off in the long run for you and your business. By aligning your posts with your core values, company mission, and growth objectives, you’ll build an audience of fans that will create a connection that lasts.