9 Mistakes Your Company is Making on Social Media

Introduction

Social media has changed the way we interact with the world. But you’re probably overusing it, or not using it effectively at all. The following are some mistakes that your company is probably making on social media.

1. Being complacent

We've all been there: you've been working so hard on your social media strategy and it's really paying off. You have a good following, you're getting engagement, and people are liking what you're doing. It's really starting to feel like the investment in time and energy is worth it—so much so that you start to feel complacent about maintaining the status quo.

Too much comfort can be dangerous in any area of life, but especially when it comes to social media. Don't get stuck in a rut or get comfortable with where things are going!

Spend some time evaluating how well your strategy is actually working for your company, and if there are ways it could be improved.

Instead of finding yourself thinking "we've got this" or "I know what we need to do," spend some time evaluating how well your strategy is actually working for your company (and if there are ways it could be improved). Don't let your guard down—sometimes even seemingly harmless habits like posting once per day can go wrong quickly if they aren't nuanced enough for specific audiences

2. Inconsistent posting

The best time to post on social media is when your audience is online. This is the golden rule of scheduling posts and it’s not always possible, especially if you run a business that operates in a different time zone or runs 24/7.

If things are going well and there’s nothing new to say, don't push yourself out of your comfort zone just because everyone else is posting at the same time every day. Your content should be relevant to what's happening in your business or industry—so don't feel pressured into posting if it doesn't make sense for your company right now! If there's nothing new to say, wait until there is something worth sharing with fans online before going live again on Twitter or Facebook!

3. Talking at your audience, instead of with them

If you want to get your customers’ attention and show them that you care about their experience, then don’t be afraid to talk with them.

There are all kinds of ways you can use social media to engage with your audience, such as:

• Responding to negative comments
• Engaging in conversations on Twitter and Facebook
• Posting content that is relevant to your audience
• Responding to questions and comments on your blog

Keeping your audience engaged is important because it will help you build a loyal following. When people feel like the brand cares about them, they’re more likely to stick around.

4. Automating everything

Automating everything is not the same as marketing. Many companies make the mistake of thinking that automation is the same as marketing, which it isn't. The two are completely different things—one automates repetitive tasks and one does not.

Using automation to create content

Scheduling posts for social media accounts can be done by hand or with an automated tool like Buffer or Hootsuite.

5. Not thinking long term before posting

If you’re like most companies, your social media team is comprised of people who have a lot of experience with the platform; they know what works and what doesn’t. But it can be hard for them to see past their own biases. Asking an outsider to review your content will help ensure that you don’t make any mistakes by not looking at things from different perspectives.

Your brand image is very important on social media because it sets the tone for everything else that happens on these platforms—how people perceive and interact with your company depends largely on how they perceive and interact with its online persona. Therefore, before posting anything online that could potentially damage that image, ask yourself: do I really want this? Then think about how your post will look in six months or even years down the road—will it still align with our current values? If not, then don't post it!

6. Not using pictures and video to their full extent

While the words you use are important, the images and videos you share are even more important. In fact, visuals are essential for social media marketing success.

Visual content is more engaging

It's a well-known fact that people don't read anymore—they scan. They scroll through their Facebook feed quickly, looking for things that catch their attention and hold it long enough to make them stop scrolling and click on a link or leave an in-depth comment on your post. Visual content has an advantage over plain text: it stands out as something worth reading! When you post a photo or video with your message, people will take notice of it because they're curious about what's going on in the photo or video (and what should they do next?).

7. Not tracking your posts

You can’t improve what you don’t track.

This might seem like a no-brainer, but tracking your posts is essential to making sure that your social media efforts are working and not just taking up space on the internet (although if they do, you should probably fix that). You need to know what content is resonating with your audience and which messages are falling flat so that you can refine them accordingly.

8. Not being timely

There’s a reason why Twitter is such an effective marketing tool: its users want to know what’s happening right now. If your company is not quick to respond when something happens, you could lose out on thousands of potential customers who are looking for the latest news about that topic in the moment.

Example: A coffee shop was serving lattes as part of their new promotion at a sporting event. It wasn't long before Twitter started buzzing with people talking about how good those lattes were! The coffee shop responded with one simple post thanking everyone for their response and then linked directly back to their website where they could purchase more lattes.

9. Doing it all yourself without a strategy/plan

You've heard it before: "Social media is a team sport." If you're doing social media marketing alone, you're missing out on the benefits of having an entire team involved.

A strategy won't just help you decide what to post and when; it'll also keep track of the metrics that matter most to your business, like engagement rate or average reach per post. (You'll need these figures if you want to convince investors that their money is being well spent.)

A plan will keep everyone on the same page so there are no as-yet-unheard-of screwups in execution or messaging (which can happen when multiple people try writing tweets at once). And while there's no one right way to build a team around social media, having one will ensure that whatever mistakes are made aren't repeated again—and again—in future posts.

Make sure you're not missing the mark with your social media outreach.

If you've already decided to start posting, it's possible that you're making these mistakes.

• You're not being consistent.
• Your posts are no more than once a month (if that).
• The content is dull, and doesn't speak to the audience in any meaningful way.
• There's no plan behind what you post and when—you just wing it each time with whatever seems like a good idea at the time, which never really works out because social media is made up of trends and ideas that change quickly over time; if your company isn't on top of those trends, then don't expect anyone else to be either!
• You don't track your posts' performance or engagement rate; this will tell you if people actually want what you're offering them through social media products like Facebook Ads or Twitter Promoted Tweets so that when someone asks why something isn't working out (like how many sales did we make last week? Did we get any new customers from our latest campaign?), then we can show them exactly why things didn’t work out as well as expected before making changes later on down the line…

Conclusion

If you want to avoid these mistakes, take a look at your social media strategy and see what’s working and what’s not. Chances are there will be some areas of improvement that need addressing—and if that’s the case, don’t worry! We know that it can be difficult to identify such issues within your own company (even when you know what needs fixing), but by keeping an eye out for other people’s advice and suggestions from time to time, you should be able find some useful tips for improving your efforts.