13 Mistakes To Avoid For Social Media Success

Achieving social media success for your startup can get confusing. There are so many platforms and many things to learn about each. If you don’t know where to start, or where to go from here, you’ve found the right article.

Beginners and professionals alike tend to make a lot of mistakes that hamper their social media success. While these mistakes aren’t always obvious, most are easy to avoid.

Avoiding these mistakes will net you faster results with less investment and less effort.

As an entrepreneur, social media is one of your most important tools for outreach and exposure. It’s an indispensable element of every modern promotion strategy.

To learn how you can eliminate the mistakes that hold you back from social media marketing mastery keep reading this article.
 

1. Giving Too Much Focus To Facebook

Although Facebook is synonymous with social media in many people’s minds, other social media channels are also important for website promotion.

When it comes to achieving good SEO, link building, and more traffic to your site, Facebook is not enough.

It’s in your best interest to branch out into other social networks to augment your online presence. Google+ is a great place to start, and Twitter is a good candidate as well.

The nature of your business influences which social media platforms will yield the best results for you. If your work involves visual elements or you want to highlight a new design, Instagram can drive a lot of traffic and conversions.
 

2. Spreading Yourself Too Thin

While concentrating on Facebook alone is not enough, it’s unwise to try and cover all platforms at once. Integrate one social network at a time. Work on them one at a time.

Don’t become overwhelmed with social media channels or disillusioned by mistakes. When you do it right, social media promotion is an incredible tool and very rewarding.

Instead of trying to grow your following on all platforms at once, start with one or two. Give them your full attention and make your profiles as perfect as you can.

Keep in mind that at a certain point your social media pages will keep growing on their own. This is what’s known as organic traffic.

When one of your profiles reaches this stage, it will require less attention. This is a good time to move on to a new platform.

Learning how to time and leverage this momentum to your advantage will bring a great boost to your social media success.
 

3. Forgetting To Implement Social Media Buttons On Your Sites

One of the powerful tricks for social media success is providing an easy way for users to find and share your content.

You should place social media buttons and links on your site and social media pages as much as you can. Make sure your sharing buttons are visible at all times on your site.

There are many buttons and combinations to consider. The following are good ideas to start with:

• Include a Facebook like button in your sidebar, ideally above the fold.
• Put an ‘Add to Circles’ button next to it.
• Use large sharing buttons and place them where they will always be prominent and easy to access.
• Include Pinterest buttons on your images and make sure to configure them the right way.

Social media success is about shares and likes, so don’t forget to include buttons for these actions everywhere.
 

4. Only Sharing Your Own Content

Unless you’re a trending celebrity, you won’t see much success if you only share your own content.

Networking is the first and foremost purpose of social media. That’s how you build a following.

Sharing useful or interesting content from various websites and social media pages is the recommended way to get more views. This way, you can increase likes and follows and avoid seeming like a simple self-promoting spam page.

It’s wise to follow significant pages and people in your specific niche and related ones. Share and comment on their posts on a regular basis to increase exposure and outreach.

Mentioning them in your posts can also help draw more attention to your page. People who follow them will see your mentions and discover your posts.
 

5. Neglecting The Full Power Of SEO For Social Media Success

There’s more to social media promotion than improved visibility and website traffic. There are many lesser-known SEO opportunities on social media.

You should optimize your pages and profiles. This way, when you increase your social media presence, your search engine presence grows even more.

Achieving this is not very hard. In short, you have to treat your social media pages the same way you would your own website. Titles, URLs, and descriptions are the most important. Make sure to give them extra attention.

Avoid the common SEO mistake of trying too hard. Don’t overdo it. Make sure to stay authentic and keep your posts natural. Share what resonates with you and your desired audience.
 

6. Expecting Followers Without Following Others

This is one of the most common social media mistakes people make. And it’s another one that has a lot of roots in the dominance of Facebook.

On other social media sites, you need to follow others if you want followers. It’s non-negotiable. You can’t expect others to follow you if you don’t follow them back. And you CAN expect people to follow you back if you follow them.

Look for leaders in your niche and related industies. Also, it’s a good idea to follow the people who follow you. At least when you’re starting out.

If you don’t follow back, some followers will abandon you. They’ll stop following, and you’ll see fluctuating numbers of followers.

You can use various tools to keep track of this and manage it.
 

7. Trying To Increase Social Media Success Too Fast

Like any other community, social media sites have many rules to follow. If you don’t stick to these rules, you may lose your account.

This can be permanent. And that means you’ll lose all the time and resources you put into building your profile and networking.

Reading all the policies for each platform is a big ordeal. You don’t have to. In most cases, you’ll be fine with plain common sense. Don’t spam or behave in unnatural, sketchy ways and you’ll be fine.

Social media is designed for social networking. Not for advertising, that’s a secondary feature. Algorithms and moderators are tuned to spot patterns that deviate from social human behavior.

As an example, adding hundreds of new friends each day will set off some red flags. That’s obvious spam, inauthentic behaviour. Abuse of the platform. This can lead to suspension or complete removal of your account.

If you want to grow your social media profiles fast while staying under the radar, add 10-20 people each day. That’s the number per social media platform, not the sum total for the day.

This will allow for steady expansion without setting off any alarms. This balanced approach will help you reach social media success.
 

8. Assuming That All Followers See All Content

This common misconception makes a lot of people confused and disappointed.

For example, let’s say you’ve got 3000 people who like your page on Facebook. When you post something to your business page, only about 300 people will see it.

The post will only appear on around 10% of your followers’ timelines. The situation on other social networks is similar.

Besides paid advertising, there aren’t many direct ways to increase how many people see your post.
 

9. Forgetting About Engaging The Audience

Social networking is all about interacting with an online community. Connecting is only one piece of the puzzle. What’s the point of connecting if you can’t engage or relate?

Remember that one of your key goals for social media success is finding new customers. In addition to following people and sharing content, you need to engage with your followers.

Social media is for social interaction. It’s about people, not ads or links. People come there for the people. It follows the same rules as physical networking settings.

Personalize your page. Act like a human, give your business a human representation. Personal contact is a powerful tool for promoting your startup both offline and online.
 

10. Mistaking Likes For Visits

This is an easy mistake to make and an important lesson to learn. It can be very confusing to beginners.

Let’s say you post a message and a link on Facebook. You come back later and find that a lot of people like the post. You may assume this translates to conversions or at least new leads.

If you look at how many visits you got from that particular link, you may be surprised at how low the number is.

A lot of people will only read the intro or look at the picture and hit the like button. Or they’ll like your posts out of habit. They don’t read the whole message or visit your website.

This is something you’ll learn to account for as you make progress. The nature of social media interactions is a big part of it. However, there are ways to increase your chances of desired action.

Using catchy titles, good images, and well-written descriptions will help lead the viewer through the post and to the link.

If you get these parts right, your post may even go viral. In that scenario, sheer numbers will work in your favor.
 

11. Forgetting About Advertising

While it’s best to do as much as you can yourself and establish an authentic, organic following, advertising has undeniable advantages.

First of all, it’s the fastest way to get more traffic. Most social media platforms have built-in advertising options for business pages. Examples include:

• Promoted tweets and accounts on Twitter
• Facebook ads
• Google+ AdWords express

These integrated advertising platforms are affordable and easy to use. And most of the time, you’ll be surprised by how effective they are.

Utilizing Facebook ads and similar advertising methods can give you the boost you need as a beginner. It’s also a great way to generate a fast social media success boost if your established profile has hit a plateau.

Keep in mind that this won’t make up for bad posts. You don’t buy retweets, likes, or shares. What you get are more views. If the post is no good, these views won’t lead to anything.

A well thought out post is still the name of the game. Combined with advertising, this will give you a lot of likes, retweets, and new followers for a minimal cost.
 

12. Not Using Images and Media

People are visual. As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words.

Unlike the myriads of text blocks that look identical at first glance, images always stand out. It’s the first thing people see, and an opportunity to grab their attention.

Not using images in your posts is a big mistake. They will drown in a sea of text, while your desired audience looks at your competitor’s pictures.

Even on Twitter, images are of utmost importance for social media success.

You should always ensure that your updates and links feature a good, eye catching image.
 

13. Forgetting The Importance Of Hash Tags

Hashtags provide the easiest means of following a discussion on social media. As an example, searching Google+ for #superbowl during the Superbowl will show you all the related news and opinions.

All in one convenient page. It’s not only a great way to follow topics, it’s also a great way to get more attention. Use relevant hashtags to tie your business into trending discussions.

You can also start your own hashtags. If they catch on, you will go viral and get many new followers and visitors.

Using hashtags for social media success is easy. Put a hashtag (#) symbol in front of a keyword and you’re done.

For example, sharing this post would call for a #socialmediamistakes hashtag.
 

Final Thoughts On Social Media Success And Mistakes

Social media makes up a big part of modern digital marketing. You can’t reach very far as a startup without it.

The mechanics and tactics for social media success may seem counter-intuitive to beginners. That’s why it’s important to note all the social media promotion mistakes listed above.

Avoiding these 13 mistakes and understanding the importance of social media is key to online success.