Small businesses are always looking for ways to boost exposure, build brand awareness, bring in leads, and keep growing. While some business owners are still resistant to the idea, social media is undoubtedly one of the most powerful marketing tools available.
Let’s take a look at the amazing potential of social media for businesses of all sizes, and explore a few of the most common mistakes small businesses make so you can avoid them.
Why Small Businesses Should Be On Social Media
Social media has huge potential for small businesses. There are more than 5 billion active social media users worldwide and that number will only keep growing, predicted to reach 6 billion by 2027.
Social media has become a go-to research tool, being used by people of all ages to discover new products, get recommendations and leave (and read) reviews. It’s also a fantastic customer service tool and gives your brand a direct line of communication with your customers. Your social media platforms can be used to handle consumer concerns, celebrate growth, answer questions and gather valuable feedback. This ongoing conversation and open line of communication with your customers reflects well on your brand, builds trusting relationships, and shows you care.
Social media can also really help you get to know your target market. You can see where they spend their time online, what content they enjoy, what trends they take part in, and what they look for in a brand. It’s easier than ever to gain a deep understanding of the people you’re trying to reach.
5 Social Media Mistakes To Avoid
When you’re getting started with social media, it’s very easy (and natural) to make some mistakes. Here are five of the most common mistakes brands make on social media, and how you can avoid them.
1. Inconsistency
Inconsistency can creep up in a number of ways, beyond just being inconsistent in the amount of times you post. You could very well be straying in other ways, from copy and tone of voice to design. Do any of these ring true for you?
- The assets you share on social media don’t follow brand guidelines. You have your brand colours and fonts, but you can be tempted to add new elements and find yourself playing with different colours, design elements and fonts.
- Your brand doesn’t have a defined tone of voice on social media. Posts range from youthful and friendly, with emojis and exclamation marks, to formal and serious. There may be multiple people in the business who post on social media, and it’s clear who has posted based on their copy.
- You feel a rush of productivity and post multiple times per day for a while, but then lose inspiration and stop posting altogether. You’re struggling to stick to a routine and fall into the trap of panic posting.
So, how do you fix these common issues? Whether you’ll be posting on social media everyday or once a week, it’s important to choose and stick to a schedule. Setting a realistic schedule you feel comfortable with is the key to consistent posting.
It’s not uncommon for multiple people in a business to post on social media. To stop this leading to inconsistencies in design and tone of voice, create some social media brand guidelines and share them with everyone in the team. Include brand colours, tone of voice, design elements, fonts and asset layouts, to ensure everyone is on the same page.
2. Ignoring Negative Feedback
Receiving negative feedback can be tough. It can feel personal, but it’s important to take feedback on board and respond professionally. While it’s tempting to delete negative comments or ignore criticism on social media, these comments can easily snowball and become a bigger problem than it was initially. Ignoring these comments can damage your brand’s reputation and lead to customers losing trust, whereas a quick, professional and understanding reply can turn a bad situation into a positive one.
It’s important to note that some negativity you receive on social media will be from people looking for a reaction. Over time, it’ll get easier to notice when someone is being genuine, but err on the side of caution if you’re unsure. As a general rule of thumb, only delete comments if they’re unnecessarily rude.
3. Spreading Yourself Too Thin
There are so many social media platforms to choose from and it can feel as though you need to stay on top of them all. By doing this, you can easily stretch yourself too thin and start sharing poor quality content. Selecting a couple of platforms and really focusing your efforts on making them perform can help you get the most out of your social media strategy, rather than trying to be on them all.
As mentioned above, setting realistic and achievable goals with your posting can make things feel a lot less overwhelming. Choose a posting schedule that works for you, even if that means your brand is only sharing content on two platforms, once or twice a week. Posting high quality content consistently on a couple of platforms is much better for your brand than spreading yourself too thin and trying to tackle everything at once.
4. Posting The Same Content Across Platforms
The pressure to be visible everywhere online can leave you taking shortcuts, and a very common social media mistake is duplicating content across multiple platforms. Social media isn’t one-size-fits-all and each platform needs its own content to suit its algorithm, demographic and etiquette. A post that performs brilliantly on Instagram may not be suited to LinkedIn, for example, due to the platforms having very different demographics, algorithms and user expectations.
Make sure you take the extra time to think about each platform individually and adapt content to suit. It could mean that you create a new asset, change up the copy, or go for a different concept altogether. It takes more time, but it’s well worth the extra effort.
5. Forgetting About Community Management
Once social content is live, it can be easy to forget to check back in, see how it’s performing and engage with your audience. Community management is a vital part of growing your social media presence, building brand awareness and creating a trusting relationship between you and your audience. Make sure you interact with any comments, whether it’s positive feedback, a negative review or a question. Positivity should never go unnoticed, so thank people for their comments and ask further questions to build the relationship.
The beauty of social media is that communication can easily be a two-way street, and showing that your brand cares about your customers can really help your brand image. Think about ways you can encourage engagement and get the conversation going. Maybe you ask questions in your copy or incorporate polls and Q&As, or simply use an active tone of voice and make sure to promptly reply to comments.
Struggling With Social Media? We Can Help!
Social media is a crucial part of building and growing a brand, but it doesn’t have to be something you tackle alone. If you’ve been thinking it might be time to get a little extra support, we’d love to chat. Drop us a message to learn more about how Victress can make social media feel so much easier.
