Social Media: What to Avoid

In the ever-changing world of content marketing, social media has become a lot more than just a place to share pictures and updates — did you know that social media now drives one-third of referral traffic? Many brands have developed a presence across different social media platforms, and some have discovered that one bad post can be costly.

So, what should brands avoid? Take a look at some common social media errors and learn how to stay away from them.

1. Refusing to Meet Followers on Their Level

Last year, a New York City hotel was involved in a social media scandal when they published an official policy that punished unsatisfied wedding guests. The policy consisted of charging the bride and groom $500 for every negative review the hotel received from any of the couple’s wedding guests.

Even though the hotel apologized by saying it was just a joke, not being able to handle negative feedback put them in a bad position, by failing to be receptive to consumers’ opinions.

2. Thoughtless Sharing

Consistent posting is a great way to drive awareness and bring in new leads and customers – but make sure you’re being thoughtful about it and not over-posting meaningless information. When bad timing and a bad sense of humor meet, for example, the results can be fatal for the brand. It is important to do extensive research and be aware of possible misinterpretations or polemic discussions that a post could initiate. Remember that it’s key to share valuable and relevant information – avoid posting just to post.

3. Forgetting Your Personas

It is not uncommon to see brands forget about their buyer personas (semi-fictional representations of your target audience) when sharing content on social media. This mistake not only drives your now uninterested visitors away, it also suggests inconsistency from your brand, which can weaken your overall image.

4. Shying Away From Social Tools

Taking advantage of tools like HubSpot can increase your efficiency when sharing content on social media – they allow you to schedule and organize your posts. Additionally, they can also give you the opportunity to diversify your content on each platform, since you’ll be able to look at all of your posts in one place.

5. Posting Unbalanced Content

When sharing content on social media, your brand needs to find a voice and stick to it. Share original, relevant posts. This will add value to your brand and will make it more recognizable to customers.

6. Over-Posting

Sometimes, less is more. Covering your followers’ newsfeeds is a mistake, as it can result in an unlike or unfollow. So, what is the happy medium when it comes to social media? The best way to find out is by utilizing social tools to understand your specific following and testing number of posts each day and throughout the week. This will help you come up with a posting strategy that generates the highest engagement rate, accommodates your users and gives them a reason to interact with you on social media.

7. Getting Stuck in Your Ways

Always be testing! Testing factors like time of day, length of post, usage of imagery, among many other things, and tracking the results will help you find out what resonates best with your audience, allowing you to build a better connection with them.

8. Failing to Analyze Your Data

If you’re not keeping track of your social media activity and results, it’ll be hard to refine your strategy and process, and consequently, you may not see any improvement. After running different tests and deciding what and when to post, look back and analyze how effective each post was. Did your audience engage with your posts? Did you post something that didn’t cause the desired effect? As we mentioned above, there are many tools that can help you monitor your audience and analyze metrics.

Interested in learning more? Download our eBook for guidance on how to create a social media editorial calendar and find what works best for your brand.

Updated: Apr 13, 2022