Social media advice you shouldn’t always follow

There is often a lot of advice available out there for those looking to find out more about expanding their brands social media presence. With so many ‘social media experts’ out there with so much advice, things can get confusing.

With so much bad advice around the internet what should you believe and what you be avoided when focusing on your social media accounts? Let’s look at some of the things you should ignore when it comes to your social media. 

Be on every social media 

Whilst many believe that having your business spread across every single social media site is a good way to get found, for many businesses it’s better to stick to the a couple of platforms which are most relevant to your business and your audience. Research which platforms your audience is most likely to populate and optimise these platforms instead of wasting time and resources on every single platform people might be using.

If you’re unsure where to start Facebook is a good place to go, with nearly 2 billion worldwide users you’re likely to find your audience on Facebook and after this you can start to think about other platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.  

Social media is the new SEO 

There are many people out there who believe that social media is the new SEO, believing that you can now ignore SEO and expect an optimised social media presence to bring the same results of effective SEO. However, in terms of function, social media will never replace SEO, instead they should be used together.

With optimised social media posts that can show up in google and link to your social media accounts, as well as a search engine optimised website which draws attention to your business, these are tools which should be used together not apart.  

Schedule everything 

Social media can be time consuming so it can seem like a great idea to schedule everything  you want to post in order to save time and whilst scheduling some posts can be great you don’t want to make everything automated. The idea of social media is to be social so it’s nice to speak to your followers in real time and interact with them where possible. 

Unfortunately if everything you post is automated your followers will be able to tell and nothing makes it look like you don’t care about your social media account quite like having generic, automated responses to everything.  

Using multiple hashtags 

Hashtags are a great way to organise tweets and participate in trending conversations, allowing participants to share content related to a certain topic. Including hashtags in your tweets can be a great way to get noticed for a particular topic and allow your business to get involved, however it can go wrong for some.

Don’t use multiple hashtags for general terms, this can look desperate and make your business look like it’s desperate to get found, even for simple terms such as #books or #marketing, instead keep your hashtags fun and on trend. Don’t forget before getting involved in trending topics to research what they mean first, meaning you don’t make fun of serious topics or trends.  

Don’t show your personality

Social media actually gives you the opportunity to expand your business and show off your business personality, in fact your personality is what makes your business stand out from other businesses in your industry. Through your use of language and through your use of images, gifs and even emojis you can fully develop your brand personality.

Show off the personality of those behind your brand, the people who bring the personality to your business, the more personality you show the more likely you are to connect with and engage with your audience.  

Don’t respond to negative comments

There are many who think you should just ignore all negative comments about your brand, however if there are negative comments out there about your business it’s important you address them. Even the smallest negative comment can spiral into a big problem for your business if not given attention.  

Don’t ignore negative comments or complaints, instead address the issue, admit any mistakes you might have made and offer a way to resolve the problem for you customer. Ignoring peoples negative comments can make your business look like you don’t care when that’s unlikely to be the case.  

Mistakes can easily be deleted 

Once your comment or post is out there it’s out there forever.  Even if you delete your post, it’s possible that it could have been screenshotted or shared before the mistake is realised and the post is deleted.

It’s a good idea to think about your post before you say it instead of posting your article, post or image and then having to delete it afterwards, not only does it look unprofessional but you could also end up offending or insulting someone by not thinking about what you’re writing first.  

All you need is social media

Social media doesn’t replace other forms of marketing, instead social media is simply another channel for you to market your business and works alongside the likes of your pay per click advertising, email marketing and your SEO strategy.

Whilst many believe you can just attract new followers and potential customers through social media alone, it’s important to remember that social media is just a factor which can help you increase conversions rather than the only way to do so. 

Ultimately you need to make your social media work for you and your business, with so much conflicting advice out there it’s important to make your social media and your strategy unique for your business, as each industry is different it’s likely that you’ll need to test what works for your social media accounts and what doesn’t work in order to increase followers and encourage a strong customer relationship.