Social media is arguably one of the best tools to grow your following, extend your influence, and raise your profits. To optimize this resource, you’ll have to post consistently, learn the algorithm, and continue to engage for the best results! While social media continues to evolve every day — there are a few things that will always stay true when it comes to avoiding certain social media mistakes.
Here are the 4 most common social media mistakes to avoid:
- Being too sales-oriented
- Buying followers
- An inconsistent posting schedule
- A weak brand voice
Being too sales-oriented
Businesses add social media to their plate because they expect to see a certain return on investment. It takes a lot of time to cultivate a social strategy, create content, write captions, and engage with your niche — so surely you’ll want to see some increased profit margins for maintaining this presence. While that’s always the goal, being too sales-oriented in your social posts can deter your audience from following and engaging with your account.
It’s more important for people to know why you sell or do what you do versus what it is that you actually offer. This is how you get into brand storytelling on your social channels and this is why people follow, engage, and stay with your brand. You need to deliver value to your following and, unfortunately, telling them what you offer in every post is just not going to cut it.
A good rule of thumb to follow is the 80/20 rule. This rule helps social media strategists sprinkle in about 20% of sales posts on your feed and allows for the remaining 80% to be other educational, motivational, or relatable content. Using this ideology ensures you’re maintaining a good balance between sales-oriented and brand storytelling posts.
Buying followers
Since the dawn of social media, buying followers has been seen as a one-way ticket to social success. In fact, some people have done experiments on this to see how fast buying 30,000+ followers could help them to land instant brand deals. Here’s why it doesn’t work in 2021 — social media platforms are getting smarter.
Most of the time, these purchased followers are fake or bot accounts with no posts and maybe a handful of followers. Platforms like Instagram and Pinterest now use artificial intelligence to sort, find, and remove these accounts to denounce this method of growth. So even if you wanted to buy followers, you may get them removed as quickly as you received them.
Buying followers also hurts your algorithm performance. As we know, Instagram’s algorithm likes to keep you on your toes. For the algorithm to work in your favor, you need authentic and genuine engagement. This could be viewers on your Instagram Reels, saves to your posts, and reactions to your Stories — all things that bots cannot deliver and ultimately will hurt you in the long run. The bottom line is that buying followers hurts your organic growth more than it could ever benefit it.
An inconsistent posting schedule
As much as we’d all love for social media to be a “set it and forget it” thing, it really needs a lot of work and care to get the results you want. You can’t post sporadically here and there and think you’re going to see amazing growth. The algorithm rewards good behavior so sticking to a routine posting schedule is the first step towards seeing your accounts grow! While social media does take a lot of effort, there are ways to optimize your workflow such as batch-planning content and scheduling out your posts (all things we do at KreativElement for our clients!). Take time out of each month or week to plan out your content and intentionally set the tone for your social media. Each platform will have different optimized posting schedules, but here’s what Instagram recommends per week:
- 3 Posts
- 8-10 Stories
- 4-7 Reels
- 1-3 IGTV videos
A weak brand voice
Your social media should act as an extension of your brand. Lacking a strong brand voice hurts your value proposition because you’re not staying consistent with the brand authority you’re trying to assert. To create a beautifully branded account, try to use the same logo, tagline, and handle across all platforms.
If your brand was an actual person, how would this person sound? Would their social captions be fun and whimsical or informative and educational? Whatever this person sounds like, make sure you keep this tone of voice consistent across your posts to strengthen your brand voice and messaging! This will help your followers understand what to expect from your brand in the future.
This list is not completely exhaustive to all the don’ts of social media but it’s a great starting point to get you to a firm foundation for your social media strategy. If you’re ready to delegate this work to someone else, let KreativElement join as an extension of your team! Click here to learn more about our social media services.