Social networks are a digital space where we can interact with others, reflect our emotions, communicate, learn about new ideas, and even offer a product or service. Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, in general, the most used social networks worldwide and the ones that have the most impact on the Internet today, became prodigious platforms to achieve great sales opportunities.
These online platforms allow us to connect with other profiles that have similar interests to us, mostly friends, co-workers, companies and institutions.
Inbound marketing has made social networks become the main platform that companies use to carry out their relationship marketing strategies.In this sense, customer service and the dissemination of valuable content become essential tasks that companies must perform on social networks.
Starting from this principle of “interconnection”, many companies have consolidated their brand through the Internet and social networks, largely replacing the use of conventional media such as television, radio and the press.
Through social networks, surveys, photographs, videos and texts related to a product or service can be shared, which has allowed companies to know the motivations of their customers and also know their opinions and criticisms.
However, what happens to those companies that know these principles, but do not carry them out correctly? Understanding how important it is to apply something does not mean that we understand for sure what its best practices are. In this way, here is a list of 7 Bad practices on social networks carried out by companies. Evaluate if you are not committing any of the following actions and think about how you can reverse your mistakes, without losing sight of your objectives.
1. Massively follow people with the objective that they give you “follow back”
One of the basic principles of inbound marketing is to segment your potential buyers when creating a profile for companies on social networks. This warrants creating a profile of your target audience that summarizes the characteristics of a buyer who can relate closely to your value proposition. For this person, your product or service must constitute an innovative idea.
If you start deliberately following people on social networks in search of a follow back, there may be some conversion rate that ensures an increase in followers by carrying out this technique, but you are really running the risk of not only following users who escape your target, but you are also attracting the wrong people to your brand. People who will probably never be interested in your proposal and who only started following you for being nice and returning the “follow back”.
Be very clear about what you expect from your followers and keep in mind what your priorities are when creating social networks for your company. If it is about obtaining sales opportunities, then look for followers who connect with your idea, otherwise all the effort you use in your social media strategies would not make sense.
2. Overuse labels
Inbound marketing specialists recommend using at most six (06) hashtags to tag your images on these three social networks. Make a list that prioritizes which labels most identify with your organization, also highlighting elements of the image.
Also, discover which formats are most appropriate for your audience, that is, whether it is better to use videos, infographics or photographs with texts. Identify which format is generating greater monetization of your content and be very precise with what you want to communicate in the tags. Remember that hashtags are also a social media positioning technique and of course, you don’t want to attract the wrong audience due to wrong tags.
3. Constantly repeat content
People need new visual stimuli that can generate innovative experiences. Publishing the same content every day and at the same time dulls the interest of your customers.To avoid this, you can have a specific content strategy but with different formats and key messages to achieve it. Create a posting calendar and visualize your next steps throughout the month.
Ask yourself what you want your profile to look like and make it happen.In some social networks, the “allowed” time in which you can repeat content varies, as is the case of Twitter in which some links (especially promotional ones) can be published more times without altering much the synergy of the social network.
4- Forgetting to respond to messages and comments
Social networks represent your maximum customer service platform. You should keep an eye on your profiles’ inboxes or direct messages, since by not doing so, you may be missing out on a powerful opportunity to connect with your customers. Let them know that they can count on you whenever they need you, including being assertive if it comes to criticism or recommendations. Remember that customers must always play a leading role in your business model.
5. Not adapting your content to the specifications of each social network
Visualize each social network as a party. Every social gathering has its norms, etiquette, language, meeting duration, and outstanding conversation topics. This is how Facebook, Twitter and Instagram work. These networks have different objectives, in terms of ways of communicating the same message.
For example, on Instagram and Facebook, it is advisable to place texts that do not exceed 250 words; if you manage to catch your reader in those few lines, you have managed to adapt valuable content for mass consumption. Thus, Keep in mind how you should communicate through each social network and the most appropriate formats for each of them. Twitter, for example, is an ideal platform for viewing videos, setting trending topics and keeping everyone informed of current events. Keep that in mind and adapt your content to each digital space.
6. Choosing a marketing agency that doesn’t understand your ideas
Marketing agencies represent great allies when you want to seek professional help to have a greater reach on social networks. These companies are usually in charge of devising a concept for your brand, creating the graphics that accompany that concept and managing publications on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn among others.
In this sense, Choosing a marketing agency that really understands what you want to achieve with your company is vital to fully materialize your ideas. Choose an agency whose values are linked to yours and whose work with the different clients it interacts with has a personalized and different touch.
7. Do not study your competition or the market
Understanding what is happening in your digital environment is vital for you to discover what marketing strategies your competition is carrying out. In this sense, Recognizing the trends and updates of each platform becomes a necessary practice that any social media specialist must carry out. Carrying out benchmarking with these objectives will allow you to compare your results with those of other organizations.
These market studies are important to highlight the needs that prevail in your audience and that your competition cannot solve. You lose nothing by finding companies that relate to your target audience and offer services similar to yours, in order to analyze their language. Is it effective for you? What aspects would you change? What things can you learn from them?
Finally, there is no doubt that these errors are very common today on social networks. The key is to closely monitor how your receptiveness has been on these social platforms and how your company fits perfectly with those potential clients built. It is about correcting these incorrect practices in time and implementing a quick, effective solution and, above all, in line with your motivations as a company.
