Whether you’re building up the popularity of your brand or trying to get the message of your campaign out to the world, you’ve no doubt realized the potential value of social media. How could you not? After all, not only can social media help you garner new audiences far and wide, but it can also help you grow a real following that spreads your message further than you ever could alone.
That being said, social media management is no walk in the park, and plenty of mistakes can easily be made along the way. Mistakes like…
3 | Not Having An Actual Plan…
A tendency many have when they first jump into the social media world is to assume that as long as you’re posting, you’re growing. Though you cannot grow on social media without posting, posting without a plan will likely lead you nowhere.
When you’re developing your social media strategy, you can’t just lead with a vague idea of what you’re going to do and when. Without an actual strategy behind your posts, your social media content comes across as disjointed – and ultimately poorly thought out. It also makes it harder to consistently engage audiences, though a handful of posts may be doing well, you will find yourself unable to truly capitalize on your momentum.
You need a well-thought-out plan to ensure your content builds upon itself and is not sporadic. Having a monthly content plan is one way of achieving that. By putting a little extra time into planning out your content well in advance (and holding yourself to the plan once it is made) you can begin making more intentional content that will catch the eyes of the audiences you’re trying to reach.
Speaking of posting, another common issue is…
2 | Posting Too Infrequently…
Posting without a plan is one thing, but posting infrequently is a death sentence. One of the biggest mistakes many people make is assuming that simply posting occasionally gets the job done. After all, why dump so much time into your social media efforts when you can get away with one or two posts per week?
The problem, however, is that sporadic posting performs poorly in the long term and ultimately hurts your chance of cultivating an actively engaged base. For most operations, near-daily posting (or at least using the features of platforms such as story posting, reels, etc), is critical to stay relevant and keep audiences coming back for more.
It can be very easy to justify inaction, but if you do not take the time to actively post, your audience has nothing to come back to and will quickly lose interest. No one wants to see a good post and come back a week later only to find nothing new.
Worse yet, is when you are active, but…
1 | Not Being Authentically You…
You can have a plan and a healthy post frequency, but none of that matters if you seem more like a stale, impersonal operation than an account with a real person behind it.
The best social media accounts, whether they are candidates or massive corporate brands, are ones that come across as very personal. They respond to comments, engage with their audience, post things people would expect their friends to post, and generally cultivate a sense of authenticity that their audiences can enjoy. In a world full of inauthentic accounts trying to sell us something, being authentic makes people feel good.
When you’re posting as yourself and treating your operation with real authenticity, people will buy in. They don’t just want to be sold – they want to feel as if they are following an account that can make them smile, laugh, and even think. You have to be more than an account spewing canned lines and never engaging with your audience. You need to be… well… you.
Need help figuring out how to get started, or want someone to show you how you can improve your own operations? Which Side Digital has years of experience building highly engaging, personalized social media content from clients across industries, and we want to talk with you. Set up a free call with us today, and see what we can do to give you a plan and ensure you’re getting everything you want out of your efforts in the digital space.
Don’t spend countless time and energy on social media only to see results that aren’t reflective of the work you put in. We’re here to help, and excited to talk about what we can do to take your social media presence to the next level.
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