Brand’s need to be active on social media. Social media can be a highly effective way to increase brand awareness and bring in customers -- but only if it’s used the right way. Knowing what not to do can be just as important as knowing what you should do.
Here are the 5 social media mistakes to avoid and why!
Not uploading videos onto social platforms
Instagram has primarily been a photo app since it was launched, but short-form videos have been the new growth driver! Instagram is capitalizing on Reels, the short-form, vertical videos that can be up to 60 seconds long. What is short form video content? The “official” definition of short form video is up for debate but it is typically referring to a video that is 10-60 seconds in length. Short form videos largely became popular thanks to social media platforms such as TikTok, Instagram Stories, and Snapchat.
Instagram’s growth and success has been largely driven by Reels and they now make up for 20% of the time users spend on the app. Although, Instagram is not the only platform pushing short-form videos. Have you been on Youtube lately? YouTube Shorts is a way for anyone to connect with a new audience using just a smartphone and the Shorts camera in the YouTube app. YouTube's Shorts creation tools makes it easy to create short-form videos that are up to 60 seconds long with our multi-segment camera. Using Youtube Shorts seems to be a great way to attract attention to your channel and gain subscribers. YouTube wants to promote these, so you may as well take advantage.
Avoiding engagement
Social media is all about being social, so if you just auto-feed (which I don’t recommend) your content out to all of your networks and never check to see what happens as a result, you’re not being social. Community management is the process by which managers check the notifications for each channel and interact in some manner, including responding to comments, deleting and banning negative users, responding to user reviews, inviting those who engage with your content to follow your channel and more.
Social media is a two-way street, where you post something and your audience responds. The amount of activity you see on your page reflects the effort and time you put into interactions on said networking platforms.
Failure to Advertise
Organic reach on social media is really no longer a viable strategy, especially on Facebook. Only a very small percentage of your followers even see your content these days, so putting even a small amount of money behind every post so you can target it to your followers and/or the appropriate target demographic will always make a huge difference in engagement and in increasing your following.
Social media advertising is critical because it allows you to hyper-target specific users, build an audience database and directly track your return on investment! Advertising through social media has been shown to increase brand recognition, improve brand loyalty, improve conversion rates, reduce marketing costs, and search engine rank better.
Ignoring updates & new features
If you’re a social media marketer or small business owner, keeping track of social media platforms' updates is a must. Social media is constantly evolving. Instagram, for example, is rolling out features and new functionalities almost every week—and the social network’s algorithm prioritizes the accounts which signed up to use these first. Considering this, it’s mandatory that businesses stay up-to-date with the most recent features and how these influence the platform’s algorithm.
What often happens when the platform rolls out new features is that it will prioritize accounts that use them. For instance, when Reels first launched, the algorithm would prioritize accounts that used them – earning them more reach and impressions – than those who posted videos on the feed.
Inconsistency
Consistency is key when it comes to posting on social media platforms. To become consistent as a brand, create a content calendar and follow it religiously. By sticking to your posting schedule, you’re essentially letting your current and potential followers know that they can count on you. Set aside a ‘planning day’ at the beginning of the month to come up with ideas, create content and plan out your feed posts in advance.
To increase engagement, remain consistent because posting content that your audience expects and wants from you will encourage those interactions. The content you share on social media should look, feel, and sound like your website. And I’m not saying to be predictable with your content. Just be consistent.
In Conclusion..
Once you get into a routine with your social media efforts, you’ll find that you start to exponentially increase your results without an exponential increase in work. It will become easier to block out the necessary time, come up with content ideas and engage with followers.
Every social network functions according to a different algorithm. This also means a posting schedule and content for each platform must be developed, as each network has certain periods when it’s ideal to schedule content. Consistent content flow will also improve your relationship with your audience, while the increased engagement will make your business get more exposure.
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