Top 5 Things Brands Should Stop Doing On Social Media

Top 5 Things Brands Should Stop Doing On Social MediaAs the new year is now in full gear, I have read numerous articles on Digital Trends and what to look for the upcoming year. The more I look around and notice that brand / businesses are still falling short on social media and digital. In order to advance digital in 2017, we first need to correct our mistakes and enhance what we were doing in 2016. Social Media has been around for awhile now, and many people managing brands Social Media channels have years of experience doing so, and should be well past the ineffective social media and digital habits. If you have not made any New Year’s Resolutions yet, there is still time to do so, and you and/or your business is still doing any of these, let’s make a resolution to stop and adopt better practices, strategies and become better marketers.

Here are my social media, digital and web items that should be left in 2016.

1. Auto-Posting from Twitter to Facebook or vice-versa

This one drives me nuts. With tools like Hootsuite and Sprout Social amoung others, it is easy to share content across multiple platforms. Marketers should no longer be doing this. First off, each platform is different and each audience is different. Second, each social channel has different formats and best practices in terms of posts. Twitter posts auto-shared to Facebook include, RT, @, and numerous hashtags, which doesn’t translate well on Facebook. Posts auto-shared to Twitter from Facebook are often cut off and missing images, which presents and unprofessional appearance to your followers. In 2017, let’s craft our messages specific to the audience on each platform.

2. Depending solely on organic reach

Granted, organic reach can still be achieved, but not to the likes of years past. Social Media is no longer free, and should be treated like any other media platform. If you are spending money on outdoor billboards, why are you not spending money on social media advertising that is more targeted? I recently read that in 2016 brands were spending just 11% of their marketing budget on Social Media. That is extremely low. If you want to make a difference in today’s digital age, you will need to spend more than that. This year, set aside a budget to do some social media advertising to give your content and social posts the boost that they deserve. You will be bringing more people to your website and more people will see your brand socially and engage with it.

3. Talking at your followers and not with them

Social Media is not free advertising for you to talk solely about your brand. You should be using your brand’s social platforms to engage with your audience. It is a great place to ask questions and learn about them so you can better enhance your marketing. You also want to reply to their comments and questions, I see too many business’s that leave questions unanswered. Social Media is a great customer service tool. Make it about them, not you. You want to proactively engage with users, in a genuine manner, on Instagram and Twitter who have similar interests as your brand. By doing that, you will see your engagement and audience grow.

4. Not analyizing your analytics to promote what your customers want

As businesses, we tend to post on social media what we think our audience wants to know about and what we think is important. As marketers we need to analyze the traffic that is coming to our website from social, organic searches and the keywords people are using to find our site. You can then take those keywords and turn them into blog posts and share them on social, which will create more traffic to your site and increased engagement. By providing your customers with what they are searching for, you are in turn generating sales without doing the hard sell. The better you know your audience, the more effectively you can create appealing content ideas and promote that content. The more sophisticated your keyword analysis, the better your SEO campaigns and content efforts will perform.

5. Not creating an adequate landing page

An effective landing page that speaks to what your ad message is conveying, is essential to the success of the ad and your website. This past year, I have noticed many ads and social posts take you to a landing that does not have the information that the ad was conveying. If you are putting money in social posts / ads, and google adwords, you need to invest the time and effort in a strong landing page to get consumers to convert into buyers. Landing pages must include a headline, subheadline, reneforcement statement, a closing argument, a hero image (photo or video supporting the content  product), engaging content about the product, and a call-to-action. Be sure to layout the page so that it conveys a fluid story with a strong emphasis on the call-to-action.

Since I could not stick to 5 and thought of this one as I was writing this, here is a bonus item that should be left in 2016. This is 2017, if your marketing person is participating in an Industry Twitter Chat or Facebook group they should be using their personnal Twitter account or Facebook profile. I am an activate Twitter user who participates in numerous chats, and I still witness brands / businesses participating using their brands account. Your audience probably doesn’t care that you are participating in the chat, as most professionals engaging in industry learning opportunities throughout the year. In today’s digital age everyone one should have their own personnal social media accounts. Next time you are participating in your industry’s chat, use your personnal account and build your brand and leave your business’s account to promoting your business and interactive with your customers.

 

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