4 Social Media Mistakes That Will HARM Your Business

Whether your favourite network is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Google+, there are some things you should avoid doing if you want to grow your community and use your social media presence to form relationships. Social media is a fantastic marketing tool to promote your business but could harm your business if not used correctly. Here are 4 things you should NOT do on social media.

Are you the HARE or the TORTOISE?

We all know the story of the Hare and the Tortoise. But how does this relate to social media? Lots of businesses hit the ground running and sprint to build up relationships and a profile as quickly as possible to gain the maximum return. This is OK - but we all know what happened to the Hare!

Just like any other marketing activity, it's important to take time to get to know the networks you are joining, set realistic goals for your business on social media, and develop a plan of action to achieve your goals. This will make sure you win the race and social media will become a strong marketing tool for your business.

1) Over promotion

Hands up if you find it really annoying when you get take away leaflets popping through your door every other day? I know that I do, so even though you don’t physically receive a promotional piece, a big issue is over promotion on social media. While you can and should share your experiences and the value of your business, products and services, balance your self-promotion by promoting and helping others. This will make your friends and followers much more receptive to your promotional posts, and your followers may be more likely to pass your promotions on to their own social media networks.

2) Not listening

It’s hard to engage with someone in a conversation if they don’t listen to you, social media is no different to having a conversation with someone face to face. It’s really hard to engage with someone and build up a strong relationship if the conversation is one way.  

We use social media to make new connections for our business and get our point across. BUT if you don’t listen to your connections and the wider social media world this is going to harm your business brand on social media.

Biggest Mistakes:

• Not responding to customers questions or problems
• Not entering in conversations about your product or service
• Not responding to customers questions or queries asap
• Not building relationships

Customers will be more drawn to your business if you are seen to actually listen to them and not force business onto them. Asking questions, getting customers opinions and personalising your responses are great ways to interact with customers.

3) Having poor branding and images

We buy with our eyes and make purchasing decisions very quickly visually. Social media is no different and is proven that people make their purchasing decisions even faster online.

The WORST thing to do is have poor pixilated images of your products or service on your social media timeline or feed. It’s proven that having good images of your products or service on your social media will drive engagement with customers. So make the most of the opportunity by having strong images of your business, products and services. If you are pinning on Pinterest read our article on '3 Things You Should Never Do When Pinning On Pinterest!'

Branding on social media is key, it makes you stand out from the rest and helps customers associate with your business. Just like the images, making sure that your branding is correct will make the customer decision to get in contact with you that much easier. Having a great logo and header image on your Facebook, Twitter or Google+ page is a key to giving the customer a sense of quality and great service.

A great way to think of your social media feed is like your shop front. You wouldn’t dress your shop front window looking untidy, not displaying your products or service and having no logo or contact details. This will mean that potential customers walk by not noticing you and not coming into the store - and they end up going to a competitor. Social media is the same as this, so take time to make your social media look great to help engage with your customers and walk through the shop door (so to speak).

4) Making it relevant to your audience

Social media feeds are full of business tweets and posts. You need to stand out by making the content relevant to your audience so you stand out from the crowd.

Your connections won’t want to hear all about YOU so make sure that you are offering something to you audience that is valuable to them. This means making your posts either useful, interesting or entertaining (or all three!). This will help your audience engage with you more often and become promoters of your business with retweets, likes and joining groups.

Keeping the frequency of your social media posts is also very important - however bombarding your audience with hundreds of messages per day is not an effective way to engage your audience. They are more likely to un-follow your business as you are filling up their timeline constantly.

These are 4 areas that could HARM your business in social media and avoiding these areas will help maximise your social media potential. Social media is a fantastic tool to have in your marketing armoury and if used effectively can increase your brand to new and exciting connections.