Social Media Slip's and Trips: How Not To Lose Followers

Expectations often lead to disappointments and that's sometimes the case with social media when we go to sign into our accounts. Watching your follower list decreasing can be daunting, as a business it's hard enough stepping into the big wide world of the web. We all make mistakes – just make sure you don't make these ones on social media.

Don't be a Debbie Downer

What a lot of people seem to use social media for is venting. It's hard to escape a bad day and if you want to do it, do it sensibly; Or better still, don't do it at all. Especially for businesses – it is a complete no go. Inappropriate content can have a massive impact on your brand reputation and with buttons such as re-tweet just a click away; it may be just enough to bring your company to it's knees. Remember, competition is everywhere and with reader/customers spoilt for choice it won't take them long to move on.

Maybe it's something you didn't say..

Engagement should be a part of your strategy when using social media, so if your posts are lacking in this department, you're certainly doing something wrong! It is important to interact with your audience efficiently for you to get leads. Whether you're engaging too much or not often enough, seriously needs to be taken into consideration. Look more into who your audience is, and who the right visitors are that are most likely to become potential customers. Work around them by doing your research; create posts which will appeal to them, and schedule them at times that are more convenient.

#How #not #to #hashtag

I'm sure we've all seen hashtags floating all over social media. Hashtags have become a massive phenomenon and the best thing is; they're fun to use! – That being said, it's easy to want to overdo it with hashtags. Don't. Keywords are great but stuffing too many into hashtags make the posts look cluttered and desperate. Creating useless multi-use hashtags is a waste of time because no one will search for it. It looks unprofessional and chances are it will soon become annoying, leading you to potentially losing followers. Use hashtags that are common and trending to build your audience. If you want to create something that represents your company, develop something that is simple and unique to your brand.

Create a strategy

You may have some great ideas but if you don't know how to put them out there, or have a strategy, you should stop right there. Without a strategy you don't have any set goals or know who you're targeting, therefore it is hard to determine content that aligns with each target audience. Social media is developing and it's progressing fast, you can't just ''wing it'' anymore. Set goals and give yourself a time-frame. Research more into your audience, more specifically customers. Who are they? What are their needs? Create a calendar with an outline of the sort of content you want to include. The information you share on the web has to be useful in order for you to have a consistent follower base.

Step out of your comfort zone

Most businesses tend to go with the most common social media channels such as Facebook and Twitter when creating accounts. However, there are a myriad of different platforms out there; depending too much on just one or two social networking sites may lead to you losing out on reaching a portion of your audience. Also, each channel has its own speciality, some are focused to promote more visual content whereas others more written. If writing is not your forte, it may be worthwhile considering visual channels such as Pinterest and Instagram. For some insight into how to use Pinterest read this article: http://bit.ly/1edbrzH The more variety of quality content you have out there, the better your website is going to rank, and the more followers you will have.

Conclusion

If you're losing followers don't just sit there and wonder why. The significance of social media can't be stressed enough for businesses, so make it a priority! Social media should become an important part of your marketing strategy, but it won’t happen overnight. You’ll need to master the art of building an audience, creating and sharing engaging content and converting followers into paying customers. If you're struggling with social media and want more information on how you can use it to grow your business our team at JDR can help, give us a call on: 01332 343281