12 Common Social Media Strategy Mistakes Businesses Make

Social media is one of the most powerful weapons that technology has given us. Earlier, brands never paid attention to social media, but due to the pandemic and the upcoming generation, being present on social media has become necessary.

If the brand is not present on social media, it does not exist- this is the current mantra that today’s users follow. 

Due to this, it has become essential for organizations to have a dedicated digital marketing team with a proper social media manager, strategist, analyst, and other important elements.

But, even after having a dedicated team, organizations make severe SMM mistakes in their social media strategies that further affect their brand’s image. That’s why we are here with the most common social media marketing mistakes that businesses make and tips on how to avoid them. 

Most Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes

Without wasting time, let’s dive into the most common social media mistakes related to social media strategy that you should avoid at all costs.

1. Absence Of Social Media Strategy

The first and most common social media advertising mistake enterprises make is not designing a proper social media strategy. 

A lack of proper strategy can lead to maximum destruction in the future. To avoid this, you need to plan everything in advance with your team.

man in white shirt and orange tie and woman in orange top working on laptop amidst WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter icons and graphical illustrations, highlighting the need to overcome the absence of social media strategy

Before the new month arrives, analyze upcoming trends, keywords, and user search intent. Based on this information, plan out posts for each social media app that you will upload in the month.

You need to design the plan as per the target audience in each app, figure out hashtags, and other important factors that you need. 

Based on the strategy, you need to finalize the budget for the month that will solely go toward the digital marketing team to execute the plan.

2. Too Much Automation Kills Human Beings

We know that it’s the age of AI and ML and that everyone is looking for automated solutions. But, too much automation can kill the human touch of a brand. And when brands realize this fact, it’s usually too late.

robot pointing to a man carrying a box with a red chair, white table, and blue laptop in the background showcasing too much automation kills human beings concept

Most organizations use automated chatbots to reply to users’ comments, messages, and other things. Though it might seem a feasible thing to do, it only drives away your target audience. 

How? That’s because people usually connect with brands on social media with the hope of connecting with the face behind the brand. They want to converse with a human who can solve their problems and answer their queries.

But, if users get a hint or feeling that the replies are coming from a bot and not a human being, they will drive away from the brand. 

To avoid such social media marketing strategy mistakes, make sure that someone from the digital marketing team handles all your social media handles and not bots.

Apart from this, there have been cases where certain brands used bots to publish tweets, posts, and other viral content. 

Though it seemed like a good idea, there have been situations when these bots posted racial slurs, abusive language, or controversial topics, which caused harm to the brand’s image.

3. Lack Of Interaction with Customers

Engagement is the key factor in becoming popular in social media. If your content does not have the engagement factor, users won’t find anything to discuss.

boy and girl in blue dresses with thinking facial expressions, pondering over a blue cartoon box with question marks emerging from it, representing the challenge of addressing lack of interaction with customer

People must share and comment on your posts so that impressions and traffic will increase.

If there are no comments on your post and no one’s sharing your posts, then it’s time to rethink and redesign your social media strategy. 

A good engaging post can bring more traffic to your website than a dozen simple posts. But only customer engagement will not give you desired results. 

You, as a brand, also need to converse with your target audience on social media. Reply to their comments, thank them for their suggestions, and apologize for any hurdles they faced while availing your services.

It is impossible to reply to thousands of comments, but you can at least reply to 50 or 100 comments that are engaging, show your brand in a positive light, and portray you as an organization that can accept criticism and suggestions.

You can always use our social monitoring tool, WebSignals, to engage with users. Enter the target keyword, and the app will show people talking about your brand or industry over the internet. The best thing about this tool is that it also shows whether the comment is positive, negative, or neutral.

Based on the sentimental analysis, you can reply to users per the sentiments mentioned. The tool becomes a personal mail ID for your social media handles and allows you to connect with multiple people over various platforms simultaneously.

4. Inconsistent Posting

Too much or too little posting is hazardous to your brand, and is considered one of the biggest SMM marketing mistakes in the field of digital marketing.

man working on laptop and woman showing thumbs down cutout in disagreement due to inconsistent posting

In simple words, inconsistent posting is harmful to your company’s health. Let’s say you posted every day for a week on LinkedIn and Instagram, and after that, you forgot to post anything for a month.

What do you think will happen? Your posts will get lost in the deep ocean of social media. On the other hand, if you post daily, you are not giving enough time to users to engage with your posts. 

Users need at least 24-48 hours to engage properly with posts. So, instead of posting daily, you can upload every alternate day for better results.

Similarly, if you post once in a blue moon, your post will get lost due to social media algorithms. 

Posting once a month or every two weeks will not give you enough leads or engagement. People will forget that your brand exists, and many might unfollow your social media handle.

Due to the above factors, it’s always better to be in the middle ground. For example, if you want to post on Twitter, then 2-3 times a day is perfectly good. 

For LinkedIn, posting daily or every alternate day works fine, and posting twice or thrice a week for Instagram will bring good results.

You can always take the help of scheduling apps for uploading your posts and tweets. It’s better to devise all the tweets and short-form content in a day and schedule them with the help of automated scheduling and relax.

For long-form content, you can always put headlines on the scheduling app along with the topic. Devise content and upload it on different platforms accordingly. 

We know that manually handling all the posts and uploading them is difficult. Due to this, it’s better to use such automated apps that can do the work for free.

5. Losing Track of Old Mistakes

One of the biggest social network advertising mistakes businesses make is not keeping track of old posts, their engagement rate, and social media mistakes made. A proper social media monitoring tool is essential to keep track of everything.

boy and girl standing with a stop-hand sign in between, cautioning against losing track of old mistakes

WebSignals can be your best friend and help you avoid such social media marketing strategy mistakes. 

It provides a detailed report with date ranges when your post-related keywords were trending, relatable topics that are popular on the internet, influencers talking about your posts, and other things.

By keeping track of your past posts, you can understand all the SMM marketing mistakes you made and avoid them in the future. 

Besides, these tools also help you finalize which old posts are eligible for repurposing and can bring good leads to your brand.

Moreover, analytics tools help you devise better social media strategies with the help of past records and comments. They can also help you improve your post quality, feed appearance, and other essential factors.

6. Treating All Social Media Apps the Same

Another common SMM mistake we found on our quest is that most brands treat all social media apps the same.

boy and girl treating all social media apps the same, holding phones in front of tree with Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter icons

Posting the same content on LinkedIn and Instagram is a big social media mistake!

Each app has a different target audience, requiring different types of content. Due to this, it’s important to plan content as per social media apps. 

The best thing to do here is to create the primary purpose of the content, like the final tagline or ultimate morale, and then generate content around it.

While LinkedIn contains owners, founders, CEOs, entrepreneurs, and job hunters, Instagram is filled with youngsters looking for trending topics. 

You cannot post a professional post on Instagram or picture-based content with a short caption on LinkedIn and expect a good engagement rate. 

You need to understand the target audience in each app and then design content based on that. Once you have the clarity, creating posts won’t be a difficult task. Though you can use the same image everywhere, the content for each app should be different.

7. Lack Of Diversity in Content

If you think that posting monotonous content everywhere will get you good traffic and engagement, then you are wrong.

boy in a yellow shirt holding a pencil, laptop, and vase with social media icons in a bulb-shaped infographic

Today’s generation wants diversity everywhere. Whether it’s clothes, food, or content, they want to see different forms all the time.

So, sticking to just text-based content or short-video-based content will only take you too far. Experimenting with different types of content will bring you good results. Try to mix and match until you crack the best format for your brand.

You can try various forms, like carousels, text-based content, memes, GIF-based content, short videos, and much more. 

You must experiment with all types of content until you find the perfect series. Based on this, you need to redesign your social media handle so that people can easily find the content they want.

8. Publishing Off-Track Content

We know it’s important to post regularly, but that doesn’t mean you should post anything on the internet. The content should always be related to your brand or industry and not anything else.

anxious girl in blue attire, a webpage illustrations of negative comments, while publishing off-track content on her laptop

 

Besides, make sure that you do not derail from the topic while writing about it. We know that it happens, but keep a check on that.

There are many cases where brands forgot about the topic and rambled about irrelevant things. What happened next was that the followers count decreased, people lost interest in the brand, and the engagement rate took a deep dive into the bottom of the ocean.

If you have a financial-based handle, posting about travel hacks or fitness regimes won’t make sense. Instead, it would deviate the audience from your site to other websites. 

Besides, whenever you design content, ensure that it falls under the “evergreen” category so that people can read and return to it anytime. Simply stating, people won’t read an article on Google’s 2011 update in 2023.

9. Lack of Storytelling

Who doesn’t love stories? People love listening to stories, especially those that make them feel relatable to the character. Having a storytelling edge in your content allows you to rise above your competitors.

four people working on laptops and a projector screen displaying graphs, with one boy observing a girl's laptop, another boy holding a file and pointing at the screen, showcasing a lack of storytelling in the presentation

Post hustle stories, founder stories, client stories, employee stories, and other brand-related stories on your social media handle. 

Posting such things shows that your brand is not just here for promotion; you are here to connect with people and make them a part of your journey.

Social media is for sharing your brand’s journey, products and connecting with people. So make sure you have a conversational tone in your posts so that users can connect with you.

10. Failing to Accept Criticism

It’s pretty obvious that people will not always treat you with good reviews. There will be people who will leave negative reviews or comments on your posts, criticize your products and demean your brand.

sad boy in a yellow shirt and blue pants being criticized with three fingers pointing at him showcasing avoid failing to accept criticism to grow personally and professionally

In such cases, it’s your responsibility to deal with such comments with politeness and professionalism. You need to have the ability to accept your faults and work on them.

Besides, almost 90% of such comments are from people who have faced problems while using your services. Due to their frustration, they left negative reviews and criticized your brand. Once you solve their issues, there’s a high chance that they will remove their comments.

However, the other 10% are from people who hate the brand for no reason. In such cases, it’s better to ignore or ask them if they are having issues with your products with utter politeness. 

11. Not Double-checking Before Hitting “Publish”

As the saying goes, “It’s better to be safe than sorry.” The same applies to the case of social media strategy.

girl in black and orange attire working on laptop, laptop bag by her side, cautioning against not double-checking before hitting publish with a webpage displaying graphical illustrations and ‘ARTICLE’ and ‘PUBLISH’ written on it

Publishing without double-checking the post is a big NO in social media. Why? Because the internet never forgets.

We have seen many SMM marketing mistakes where celebrities and major brands posted inappropriate posts or confidential information over the internet and were sorry for the same. People immediately notice the social media advertising mistakes, and the world catches up with them within seconds.

Whether photoshopping an image or tweeting something that’s trending and relatable to your business, you should always double-check before hitting the “Publish” option. 

Believe us; you don’t want to be a negative meme material for your posts on the internet. 

12. Focusing on Quantity Over Quality

Most brands focus on gaining followers instead of posting quality content, which is considered a social network advertising mistake in the eyes of digital marketers.

woman demonstrating the perils of focusing on quantity over quality, pointing to one of three emojis on a tablet screen

A large number of followers won’t matter if you do not get the desired engagement rate and traffic percentage on your posts. Continue posting quality content, and your brand’s follower number will grow accordingly.

Most brands even buy fake followers to attract major influencers and clients for collaborations. But, sooner or later, these brands will face the wrath of algorithms and ultimately get banned from social media apps.

So, as a social media strategist, it’s your job to design content for real users so that the engagement and traffic are real. 

Forget getting large numbers of followers, as it’s of no use. Even if you have only 1000 followers, of which you get at least 500 comments on the day you post something, it’s worth it.

Summing Up…

Designing the perfect social media strategy is a tedious job. It takes months of practice to understand what posts will go viral, what controversies the brand should not head on to, what social causes the organization should support, and other relatable topics.

Social media strategy is a hit-and-trial method, which stops only when one finds the plan that bodes well with the brand. During this whole hit-and-trial method, it’s obvious for professionals to make mistakes. However, what matters the most is whether they learn from their mistakes.

boy in red striped shirt holding a speaker and girl in yellow shirt working on laptop, mobile illustration in between and social media icons for Facebook, Pinterest, and Instagram, highlighting common social media marketing mistakes

Due to this, enterprises need to opt for a proper social media monitoring tool, like WebSignals, that can handle all their social media factors well. With this social media monitoring platform, you get the freedom to perform competitive analysis, connect with influencers within seconds, and efficiently manage the comment section on each platform. 

A proper social media monitoring tool will become your best friend throughout the journey and help you avoid making blunders in the future. We always make sure that our users have no problems while using our platform. Want to know more about us? Go ahead to our about us page and meet our enthusiastic team! 

So, these were some of the most common social media marketing strategy mistakes we found. Do you know any more of such SMM mistakes? Let us know in the comments below!

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