Welcome back, I'm James Roberts, this is Behind the Madness where we talk about business growth, ways to work smarter and the fundamentals of business all geared to unlocking your brands peak performance. So let's dive into this episode all around the 20 social media mistakes to avoid. So I am joined with, by, with, how.
Put another preposition in there, let's get some more, to, at, together, before.
I'm here with Jamie and I am going to put him. Under the microscope? No, I'm not.
Mate, just going to have a discussion with me. Uh, there's no need to examine. What's going on. I'm not a science project. Let's just have a nice little chit chat.
I have been reading a blog, which has been put out from HubSpot and it is all around the 20 social media mistakes to avoid in 2022. Jamie's here with me to go over these 20 points and kind of dive into each point and, um, see what we make of them, but, before we do. Obviously with our podcast, we are trying to be more, more human, which we're learning over time. We're trying to be more like us. So with that in mind. I am going to start with another joke.
Hold on to your hats kids.
How do you tell the gender, Paul's already got his head in his hands. How do you tell the gender of an ant? So you get a glass of water and you put the ant in the glass of water. If it sinks, it's a girl ant If it floats. It's a buoyant.
That's so awful. You can tell your father. He's just he's just taking out His little black book of dad jokes and just gone. Oh. That one's in there.
So now that we've lubricated the wheels, let's dive in, so 20 points, Jamie, let's get straight into them.
It sounds like I win a toaster at the end of this,
So these are all mistakes that people are doing on social media. Number one - they are not using reels.
Agreed, Short form, especially short form video has become massive. It's an easier way to grab attention and hold attention, because it is more engaging. It allows you to get more fun, more entertainment, more information across. But in shorter attention spans, which like if you haven't been on TikTok and Instagram Reels today then that's very unlikely.
Number two - not live streaming.
This can be hit and miss. Uh, it is a good way to grow your audience. because there's an authentic element which obviously, as James says with our podcast, we're trying it, but also being more authentic and showing up more as a person online is very, very, very enticing for audiences because it seems less scripted. So going live yeah can be a good winner.
So even with companies you'd still try and get that personal approach.
Yeah, a hundred percent. Like if you could go live, even say your a product based business, and you're doing a walk around the manufacturing plant, or if you're in the stock room and you're looking through stock, you can go live and talk people through products. You can go live and talk about systems. You can do interviews with people. We could go live right now and talk about the podcast kind of almost behind the scenes. There are some nice bits to it.
But it does take a little bit of added time making sure people are comfortable, There is your team you've got to think about and making sure they are comfortable with that.
Number three - uploading videos with TikTok watermarks.
Um, yeah. So this is, this is an interesting mistake, it was done very, very often in the beginning because people were repurposing content, when reels was launched by Instagram. People were already on TikTok creating so they would just download it and post it again. But Instagram kind of went, wait a minute, we don't want to be promoting our big rivals. And so did start putting algorithms in place that went not a big fan of seeing these and also they don't look as good.
They look tainted, like if you download an image off Google and it had a watermark on it, it doesn't look as good.
Yeah, I was going to say that, a few people that I follow do exactly that. And it makes me feel slightly devalued because I'm looking at them, watching them, following them on Instagram. It's almost like they haven't cared as much for me as they would have done for TikTok
Yeah, you've got to remember each room you're in on social media is a different audience. You talk to people differently on LinkedIn as you would from TikTok and it's important to remember and value that audience.
Number four - sharing low quality content.
There's a big, big thing that people need to get away with this is completely right. Quantity over quality, a hundred percent, you should always just post because It gets you into a position of doing it and then you will get better as you do things. But don't put out rubbish, don't put out unvaluable stuff. Make sure you are putting out stuff but making sure it's of quality.
Number five, not optimizing your bio.
Yeah, this is definitely right, a lot of good ones on this article. Definitely right because people want to know what is all about, the way people normally go through in social media is they'll see something in a feed if they like it, they'll like it. If they really like it they'll probably visit the page, see if they've got other content they may like. And when they're there, they will look at your page, see what you're about and then decide whether then I could click follow.
Part of that is the bio. So your bio should say who you are, what you do, who you help and ideally why you do it and then a call to action a website any other links or Linktree, something like that.
Number six, having a personal account instead of a business one.
Yeah, a personal account is good but a business account is exactly that it gives you the tools, stuff like more data, more insights, more opportunities to learn about your audience, which then allows you to connect things like Meta Business Suite. Then you can dig deeper, you can run advertisements, all of these kinds of elements which allow you to grow as a business. So definitely if you're on a personal account get that switched over to a business account.
Number seven - buying followers.
Don't do it. That's it. Yeah. Just don't do that.
I know this comes back to everything within marketing is not only the social media life. If you are buying followers, you don't know who they are, you don't know what they are, you've got no connection with them. There is absolutely no point in doing it.
Well, the people who buy followers, James, are people who love the vanity metrics. They love seeing that they've got a hundred thousand views, but unfortunately when they post, they don't get a hundred thousand likes. So focus on engagement, don't focus on the vanity metrics like how many followers you get. Build a good audience not a big one.
Number eight - skipping captions.
It's a no brainer a caption. It is part of your content and if you are as a business, as a marketing manager or a team you're wanting to put out quality content, why would you leave out 40% of what's there? If you write a tweet without caption, you'd write nothing. So why would you do on Instagram or LinkedIn or anything like that? You have so much opportunity to add value. The photo element of something like Instagram is to grab the attention, stop the scroll.
The caption section is to really, really drill home your information and help someone with their goal and then also put call to action in direct them to where you want them to go next.
Number nine using viral sounds in ads.
Oh, trending audios. Like the amount of times either I'm spending or I know managers are spending, looking for trending audios is is outrageous. It's really helpful, it kind of allows you to grab free attention. The attention is already there on trending audios, so make the most of it don't worry about having to drive home attention. Utilize it for yourself and your brand.
Number 10 - using sounds too late.
Using sounds too late. Okay, so you're going on the backend of a trend. Um, yeah, It depends, sometimes you are just late to the party that's the name of the game. There are so many trends. There are so much movement on social media. It changes daily as in I'm saying hair as a social media manager and if I told you I knew exactly what was going on with social media I'd be lying because it changes all the time.
So if you are a bit late to the party don't worry about it, you still going to enjoy the party. So I would disagree with that one a little bit the earlier the better, but if you're still getting some of the attention brilliant.
So I think this comes down to, and obviously I'm just reading through the blog quickly. The average sound has a shelf life of a week or two. So it's great to use in your posts, however, it's not a great strategy for ads. So don't age your ad by including trends that are sure to die off instead stick with evergreen content that will work every time.
So I guess it is really around those ads that you are placing out there through social media that obviously is going to have a shelf life of a very short period. Especially with, you know, with ads that you're putting out on social media anyway, with it, certain campaigns you might want them to run for certainly a longer period than, than two weeks or a week.
Evergreen content, always a winner because as it sounds it's evergreen.
Number 11 - not using filters and effects.
Sometimes. Yes. Sometimes. No. Part of this is platforms love you to utilize their tools, so whether that is the filters, the effects, the caption, the link buttons, the different tools. People like Facebook, Instagram, TikTok they'd like you to use their tools and if you use them you're more likely to be promoted by that platform.
And I suppose as you say yes, and I know that you can over use.
You see some and there like if I turned around and put a picture of you on Instagram with some of the like hundreds of filters people will go, well, it's not authentic. It's not who James is, it's just not what Method or the personal brand, whoever is about. If you saw Apple putting out a really, really cool new iPhone but it was coated with flares and things, you go, a bit tacky for Apple. So it's got to be fitting, remember brand. It's all about your brand, be authentic.
Number 12 - being too promotional and not authentic enough.
So. there's an 80/ 20 kind of rule in the marketing. Well, you should be helping, 80% of the time and then plug your stuff 20% of the time. But it's important in that 20% of the time that it is still leading with help. Always lead with help at the end kind of say, did you know we've got this new product available? Did you know, we've got an ebook you can kind of go and get. You've got to go and help people and care about helping people.
People will see straight through if your just, a bullshit merchant. Yeah, exactly. Got to give.
Which ties quite nicely into it. Ignoring mentions.
Yeah, gotta listen. social media is social and obviously with social, we've all got friends who could talk at us for hours, but then aren't great with the listening. It's important, you feel valued when you get listened to so hear what people are having say about your brand. Look at them, use tools like HubSpot or Later to make sure that you are looking at brand mentions, see what people are saying, see where your reputation is, listen to what they've got to say, and then act on it.
Number 14 - retweeting too often.
Um, hit and miss again, a yes and a no. If you're doing it every 20 minutes, then your audience will go, right, one, they've got no thoughts of their own and two your clogging up my feed But at the same time, if you're getting retweeted and you're retweeting that then great because you're just sharing the love. Um, same if you are seeing something that you think will bring value to your audience again, you are sharing the love.
I suppose this, this is obviously very much Twitter terminology, but retweeting, or resharing posts obviously comes into exactly the same way, and I think as you said, being social and sharing the love when you are reposting or retweeting definitely kind of comes into it.
Love to see other people's success and when you can put that out into the world, uh, and to your audience if you think they will find it valuable comes back to your audience.
Number 15 - tweeting the same thing.
Yeah, I don't think you should tweet the same thing. I agree that you shouldn't do that because people get bored, people get bored very, very easily. There's a reason as a character limit on Twitter and if you're tweeting the same thing, then even if it's the same topic, rephrase it put it in a different light see how it does, it's a great opportunity to test and see what language your audience respond to.
What length they respond to, you could talk about a podcast and you could talk about it in six words, or you could talk about it in 160 and then you could see what's different.
They've expanded on this in the blog quite nicely saying, imagine stepping into a store and seeing the same item displayed everywhere. Once you realize there's nothing new to explore, you lose interest and quickly walk out. And I think that's very valid.
Yeah, I love that.
Number 16 - posting too many videos and photos.
Posting too many. Um, yes and no, if you're over whelming, and clogging up your users feed then obviously It's going to be a stinker. Like you want to make sure you are fitting into your consumer and your user's life.
Number 17 - having a low response rate.
What about it?
I'm just scrolling through again. Removing negative comments.
No, I love a negative comment. A negative comment trolls weather, it can be a troll or it can be just a negative comment. Are your greatest feedback. As a business if someone is negative towards you, listen to them. They may just be out there because they're very unhappy human being and they're jumping online to try and make themselves feel bigger. If that's the case be nice to them, see if you can make that day.
If they are giving you negative feedback about your business see how you can resolve it, see what you can learn. If you're a restaurant and someone says, oh, I had an awful experience take as an opportunity. Invite them to the next taste tasting day or tasting menu. And if you do that interaction in the comments, not only will you make that user feel better, but every other user who reads that feed will go. Blimey. They responded how I want a brand to respond.
And they're more likely to interact with you because they know how you've interacted with others.
A nice link into the previous podcast. If you haven't listened to it already, where we were discussing between a collaboration between teams with sales and marketing. When we're saying, get that feedback from your customers which is going to help your marketing team. This is exactly that, you know, this is getting feedback from the frontline, and understanding how to improve and make yourself better.
And that's where that swap over comes across. Like this would be feedback from the marketing team for the sales. So it goes both ways.
Yep. Number 18 - not having a custom photo cover.
Hit and miss, I always do because it's an element of control that you can then test, it looks more professional. It doesn't have to be video, but it can still be video based. So, whether it's got texts on it, whether it's photo dominant, whether it's a snippet from the reel they're about to watch, whether it's just an explanation.
And I think their explanation is pretty much exactly the same. A custom photo cover is a great way to stand out from your competitors who may use their logo or stock photos or worse, nothing at all. Number 19 - neglecting your community.
Oh, God, I don't even know where to start. Like. If you neglect your community, that could be missing DMs, not responding to needs comments, not sharing, not looking at the insights. Why you using social media? That's a question to ask yourself. You are there to build a community. You're not there to get rich and get famous overnight, you're there reach more people they are your community, build them, trust them, ask them, talk to them.
The last one I've got to scrolling down is ignoring your competitors.
Yeah, again. We wouldn't have done it 40 years ago. You would have always looked when Lamborghini and Ferrari started, when newspaper different newspapers started they looked at each other what they were doing. So why would we stop it in the digital age? See what they're doing. Don't copy. Take inspiration. Hang out in their comments, see what their audience is saying to them, see if you can help their audience. Be collaborative with competitors.
Like, it's a really important space, obviously there are so much edge on competitors. Look for similar accounts, not competitors.
So there you have it I think 20 really good social media tips that you can make sure you're doing or not doing, and really get that kind of sorted out now really an influence what you are doing over social media really improve your marketing gain in that social world. So, as we say at the end of all of these podcasts, that madness never stops. We'll be back soon with the next chat.
So to have your say, let us know what you want to hear next time you could do that either by jumping on to iTunes and dropping in a comment of what you felt. Give us some feedback. As we've kind of said, also we are across pretty much every social platform. So make sure you jump on to all of those. Give us some love, talk to us we're the nice guys. Thank you so much for listening and we shall be back soon.