Nearly every business nowadays has one or more social media accounts that they post to regularly. Whether it’s Instagram, Twitter, or Facebook, social media has the reach and power to grow both a business and its sales—if you do it right.
Many businesses are often finding themselves struggling to identify, engage, and create content that appeals to their ideal audience. Long gone are the days of making a thinly veiled, self-promoting post and watching the masses respond with joy.
At Witmer Group, we’ve helped countless clients grow their social media accounts and improve their audience engagement metrics. Here are five things you need to immediately stop doing when managing your own social media account:
Zero Added Value
Posting content that adds zero value is probably the biggest mistake we see companies making when managing their own social media profiles. People nowadays want personalized content—content that speaks to them.
For example, if a plumber in Addison, Texas creates a Facebook post that reads:
“Need a plumber in the Dallas area? Call me today!”
His audience members are probably going to give that post exactly .5 seconds of attention before they completely forget about it.
Instead, what if the plumber had uploaded a video on how to perform routine household plumbing maintenance? Now that is something that his audience will watch, like, save, and even share with their friends. He wouldn’t lose a dime of business as most of the maintenance stuff doesn’t have a very high profit margin.
Give away valuable content or information, and your social media audience will reciprocate in kind.
Monotonous-Sounding Content
Monotonous content is boring.
It’s usually a few words.
Then a few more words.
Maybe a boring matter-of-fact statement after that.
It’s completely devoid of any human emotion, much like the preceding four sentences.
One of the more significant mistakes that we see is when companies use a dull corporate-speak tone of voice. While technically correct, this isn’t how average human beings talk to each other. Persuasive content stems from natural language. It relaxes people and doesn’t put them on guard as reading something that sounds like it came straight from the mouth of a 1970s used-car salesman.
Break up the monotonous blurbs of text with short sentences. Right afterward, use a longer sentence. After a while, you’ll get a feel for the cadence and flow of the perfect social media post. Grammarly has a free tool that you can use to check your writing before posting it online.
Duplicate Content
If your business has more than one social media account—and to save time and energy, you regularly post the same content to different accounts—your audience members are probably unsubscribing on a regular basis.
Many people will often sign up for more than one social media account from a company. If you post the exact same thing to Facebook as you do Twitter, it doesn’t add any value. Instead, the end-user will get a notification on their phone, and when they see the same exact content you posted on Twitter 15 minutes ago, there’s a good chance they’ll unsubscribe—or make a mental note to ignore all Facebook post notifications from your business.
Try to change up your content slightly before reposting it. You can accomplish this best by adding a unique comment or take on the content that you’re about to repost. Even a couple of sentences tacked on to the end of a repeat Twitter post can add enough value that it won’t cause people to start to ignore one of your channels.
Negative Comments
Eventually, you’ll wind up getting at least one negative review on the internet. These most often come in the form of Facebook posts from your customers, or perhaps a nasty review on your Google My Business profile.
Instead of deleting these comments, try to resolve them in a manner that’s favorable to the person complaining. Other prospective customers will see that you try to go the extra mile, and that will help establish trust.
When it comes to online reviews, do NOT under any circumstances have your employees create fake online reviews—lest you wind up in hot water with the FTC as the makeup company Sunday Riley did a few weeks ago.
Blatant Self-Promotion
When Facebook and the other social media sites first started getting popular, there were no best practices to follow. It was literally the Wild West. Anything went. Over time, people grew tired of the blatant in-your-face self-promotion that many companies did.
In 2019, there is a fine line between what is and what isn’t appropriate when it comes to self-promotion. The best way to define it is to ask yourself, “am I offering my audience any value with this post—or am I simply promoting myself?”
Social Media Help in Dallas
Done correctly, social media marketing can drive new business and improve audience engagement. If you find yourself struggling to maintain and keep an actively participating social media audience, give us a call at (214) 865-9484.
At Witmer Group, we’ve helped countless clients manage and improve their social media sites. We can help do the same for you. Call or contact us today to learn more about the social media management services that we offer.