Each day our team looks at far too many different Social Media pages and profiles and we are constantly seeing the same issues surfacing. Here are some of the most common issues that we see with many business Social Media campaigns, in no particular order...
1. Not utilizing Google+
Businesses have been very late adopters to this Social Network, but the advantages of utilizing Google+ are amazing for business. Google, obviously, wants you to utilize their products as much as possible and it will reward you for doing so. Creating a good business page, verifying the business, verifying your website, and keeping your content and design fresh can help your SEO for your website and get your business to show up more often in Google Search Results! We feel that Google+ may be at least as important to businesses as Facebook.
2. Pushing content from Facebook to Twitter
Twitter users are just that...TWITTER users. This is a very loyal market that you're reaching and they are very loyal to Twitter. They don't want to see your fb.me links that you're pushing from your business Facebook page. Don't treat Twitter as just 'that other network' or you will never see any results.
3. SELL SELL SELL
Social Networks are meant to be just that...SOCIAL. No business is successful on Social Media just selling all the time. Yes, we understand you're a business and your main objective is to sell, but no customer wants to see that all the time in their feed. This is a fantastic way to lose followers VERY quickly. We recommend (depending on the industry) an 80/20 rule. We believe that 80% of the content that you're posting should be engagement based. It doesn't even have to have anything to do with your business, but it should be something that your followers are interested in. The other 20% can be sales posts. Sticking to this ratio will make your sales pitches tolerable and much more successful. Remember, the more people engage with your posts, the more eyes are going to be on your business.
4. Not utilizing Hashtags or over use of Hashtags
It seems like most businesses are either totally forgetting hashtags or they're going crazy with them. Totally forgetting hashtags is causing your impressions to suffer, especially on networks like Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, Google+ and Facebook. There are many people that search posts based on hashtags and follow specific hashtags. Then there are the businesses that over use hashtags. On Twitter and Instagram, you should be using more hashtags, but we recommend NOT using hashtags on LinkedIn and limiting your hashtags to a maximum of 3 hashtags on Facebook. Impressions and engagement will decrease with more than 3 hashtags on Facebook, but two is ideal.
5. Trying to be everything to everyone
Not every Social Network is for everyone or every business. Very few businesses should actually be utilizing each of the seven Social Networks that we offer. We recommend limiting your Social Networks to 3 to 4 networks, unless the demographics of additional networks makes sense. For example, Instagram is a very young demographic with nearly 90% of their users being under the age of 35. If you're targeting people over 35, Instagram probably doesn't make sense for your business. Be smart about where you focus your time, energy, and money.
