5 things you need to stop doing on your businesses social profiles now!

Your social media channels are an important extension of your brand. They allow you to reach current and new customers and communicate the benefits of your product or service.

When executed well, a social media strategy can result in new customers and greater customer lifetime value. When executed poorly, it can turn away prospective customers and reduce customer loyalty. 

We’re going to outline five content types which could be limiting your social media strategy – and losing you followers. 

Avoid these post types in your approach.

1. Content that’s too sales focused

Whatever your social media goals are, what matters is quality content. Changes to Facebook and Instagram’s algorithm has meant content that brings value to your audience will receive more impressions.

Use your social media channels to start and join conversations that are happening amongst your audience, rather than trying to blatantly broadcast what you are selling.

Remember the 5-3-2 rule, which states that for every 10 posts you publish:

• 5 should be curation –  sharing others’ content
• 3 should be creation – relevant content you’ve produced yourself
• 2 should be humanization – personal, fun and relaxed content that humanizes your brand 

2. Political or religious content

Stay away from political or religious content if you wish to avoid polarising your customers. This type of content can be viewed as irrelevant or offensive and should therefore be avoided. Even if something is making your blood boil.

You may be wondering about organisations that take a stance on political or religious issues successfully, such as Air BnB’s support of marriage equality. These businesses have the advantage of hundreds of thousands of customers and millions of dollars behind them. Not to mention teams of social media managers who can respond within a second to positive or negative sentiment. Smaller businesses don’t have this luxury. For now, keep the religious and political sentiment to your personal page.

3. Viral memes 

It’s tempting to share the latest viral meme or funny post when you’re low on time and your social feeds are in need of an update. But take care – chances are, your audience has already seen whatever it is you’re about to post, and reposting will dumb down the rest of your activity. 

Instead, plan your content in advance to make sure your posts are relevant to your audience. If your lacking inspiration take a look at some of the social media feeds of companies you admire. 

Try and set a theme for the month and craft your content around that theme. If you’re still having difficulties crafting content, engage an expert to help you create a content calendar. This will help you define a clear strategy for your social media presence. 

4. Posts with spelling or grammatical errors

Your social media profiles are an extension of your brand, and you need to make sure that each post is an extension of your brand’s voice and tone. 

Avoid posting directly to your social media profile. As mentioned above, plan out your content and then schedule it fortnightly using tools such as Buffer and Later. Make sure you check every post for spelling and grammar errors. Not doing this can make your business look sloppy and unprofessional.

5. Posts that blatantly copy another company

Occasionally you’ll stumble across a company within your industry that has a winning social media strategy. Maybe even a better strategy then you do. You may be tempted to copy their strategy or worse blatantly copy their posts. This should be avoided. 

There is nothing wrong with reposting content and giving credit for the content  you are sharing. However, you must credit the original source. 

Remember….

When you’re posting regularly to social media, it can be easy to get into bad habits, and brands often believe that posting any content is better than not posting at all. 

On the contrary, posting negative, irrelevant or sloppy content can damage your brand and lose you valuable followers. Make sure you fill your feed with quality content and you’ll keep your impressions and engagement metrics soaring.