My Top 10 Social Media Mistakes You Don't Want to Make and Can Avoid

My Top 10 Social Media Mistakes You Don't Want to Make and Can Avoid

Social Media has been with us for many years now and Social Media Marketing is one of the best ways to promote yourself, your brand, business or products online with. But there's still a lot of people who are starting out in using Social Media Marketing for the first time and learning how to do it. That includes making mistakes. Mistakes aren't always bad, for without mistakes you don't learn not to make them again. But why make those same mistakes for yourself when you can learn from the people that have already made the same mistakes?

A wise man once said to me; there's two types of people in the world. There's people that learn from their own mistakes. And there's people that learn from other peoples mistakes. Which are you? Well, regardless, I'm going to give you my top 10 social media mistakes you don't and shouldn't make yourself that you can learn from ME. Without having to learn them for yourself.

1. Having no Social Media Plan
Plans are good to have. Because plans are things you can put into action. Plans get your goals achieved. You can't really achieve your goals unless you have a plan to do so first. And if you don't make plans to achieve your goals you can't really measure your success! So plan, plan and plan some more! Plan days, weeks, even months in advance. Come up with some kind of Social Media Plan. Whether it's just sending one tweet a day and posting something to your Facebook page at least once a day. Make the plan and stick to it. By doing so you'll find it much easier to get where you want to get to when it comes to seeing success.

2. Having no Content Strategy or the Wrong Strategy!
Just like Razzy has been saying on here lately how Content is King. Well that's true since content is what things happen around. Content can lead to conversations taking place. It can lead to relationships being built which drives up your ROI. It can lead to networking opportunities and even conversions for the things you are advertising in that content somehow. Whether it's your own product/service or someone else's. So put together a solid content marketing strategy. Whether it's just to write and publish and share one article a week or more to arranging many content pieces and social media sharing and more. ?

You already have a website that is capable of pulling in email subscribers, earning you followers on social media, to gaining you clients, sales and revenue. But a lot of people neglect to invest in these essential tools of the trade. Having a good strong email subscribers list, a good quality blog or content site along with richer media assets like videos, infographics, unique photos and images etc are all essential elements for any Social Media profile today and for any business using Social Media for that matter too!

4. Forgetting To Be a Human Being
You've heard it said before "treat people how you want to be treated" right? Well the same can be applied online in your Social Media marketing endeavours too. Everything you say and do online makes up your whole brands image. So treat people like you love them, like they are as amazing as they are. Be kind and awesome to everyone. Don't post half-assed comments and replies that are borderline snarky EVER! Only ever reply in a professional manner like you're sat in the same room with them at the same time.

?5. Ignoring Comments, Responses & Replies
It's easy to ignore or overlook some peoples comments on your Social Media posts. Especially when some of them are very small, mundane comments and responses. But not only is every comment a social signal in the eyes of Google which goes towards your rankings and overall authority. But by responding to all comments, responses and replies shows that you're very active and are a responsive business. And people generally like that. Think about it; when you last wanted to buy something from some website and saw they was inactive or took a long time to reply/respond, it kind of put you off right? So respond as fast as you can and remember rule 4 above!

6. Not Having a Long Term Plan
A lot of businesses these days get all hyped up about their new Facebook page or Instagram profile. But then a few weeks or a couple months after soon practically forget about it and neglect it. That's a big definite no no as you will likely actually loose clients and business that way as opposed to earning them. Embrace your social media marketing plan as though it's part of your every day business. If you can't do it yourself, get someone else to do it for you! Just don't ever let your pages and profiles get forgotten about and abandoned as people will look at that and think your business is also abandoned. Is that what you want?

7. Not Having a Solid Lead Generation Strategy
You want people to recognize your brand and business regardless to the social media site they're on. You can have different sized backgrounds and covers for each social networking site but do make sure as much as possible that they all have the same color palette/theme/style and that your brands logos are clearly visible on all of them. That way people will know your Twitter account is definitely the one for your Facebook page or Instagram or Pinterest or YouTube, Google+ etc etc and so forth.

8. Not Using Consistent Branding
This is very similar to 7 but it's more about branding your business on Social Media. You'll want to make sure your brand is clearly recognizable on all social media sites and remains consistent throughout them. You'll have different variations, covers, sizes etc etc on all of them to make use of in some way. But your brands logos and or colors should be the same on all of them regardless to size, variation, type etc.

9. Not Having Fun!
Social media is meant to be fun and enjoyable end of. People go on social media sites to escape the boring moments of real life. They go there to share stuff and to see what others are sharing. People use social media because they invited by someone else. And you should realize and remember that those people were invited into our circle or you invited them to be in yours. Those people want to have some fun and relax by sharing stories, images, photos, videos etc that interest them and make them smile. Tap into your followers likes, interests, passions, hobbies, what makes them laugh and then give them what they want. They'll reciprocate!

Check out this update from Skittles. You see what they did there right?


10. No About Us Description
I don't know about you but whenever I'm checking out some websites social media profiles for something I want to buy, I'll always click on the "About" section on Facebook to see what they've put there. And a lot of people, businesses, don't fill this in adequately with enough information about them and it puts me off! So make sure to fill in all the areas on all your social media profiles and pages with information about you, about your business rather. Even if it's just something that says what you do, how you do it and why. And where you are and stuff like that. It will have such a benefit so don't neglect that or it could be a big mistake!

11. High Quantity - Low Quality
Don't just ram pack and fill up your social media profiles and pages with tons of low quality posts throughout the day. You'll not only inundate people (nobody likes being inundated?) but if your posts aren't quality posts that aren't very interesting or informative and useful they'll hit that unfollow and unlike button quick! Focus on posting on high quality posts that are staggered out throughout the day. Check out these Social Media Dead Zones to know the best and worst times to post to social media.

12. If You Build it - They Will Come

A classic line from Field of Dreams. And a motto I've found success with many times before as well. Without it, it can't be. But with it, it can. So get it, make it happen, put it out there and then it can happen. Does that make sense to you? It should. Basically, just don't ever neglect/abandon your social media pages (even if you're not making any money yet). Update your pages/profiles regularly, swap around and change your profile photos, cover images etc with some new images every now and then. Dead social media profiles are much harder to get the Edgerank back!

And that my friends is My Top 10 12 Social Media Mistakes You Don't Want to Make and Can Avoid. Of course, there are more as you can imagine. Some that I don't wish to repeat here lol. But these are the most that I remember and go by when doing SMM.

Have you ever made any of these mistakes before yourself? (Be honest).

What Social Media mistakes have you made in the past that you'd never repeat again?

Cheers and to your success!

Mike.