Social Media Misunderstandings and Mistakes

I still see so many businesses that don’t understand what they are suppose to do with social media and why it doesn’t work for them. I think some of it is that some of the social media managers don’t understand that there is a value to the website or how this should integrate. As I type this integrated seems to be the word that keeps getting over looked.

#1  Inconsistent and Disjoined Messaging 

I saw one go by today that inspired me. The first thing was the image was counter intuitive to the Facebook page. Being disjoined in messaging only confuses your end user. So here was this Facebook post with a few random hash tags, one of which was the business name and a few ‘likes’ for the image but nothing that actually tied this back to the business. You could not tell what the picture was or how it related to the site or the hashtags posted with it.

Additionally, the graphic had a quote on it that was not right.  The person quoted although a famous person, had absolutely zero to do with the business. If  quoting  someone, I would pick someone that was related to what i was doing. So for me I might quote Steve Jobs, not Elon Musk, although I might gratuitously add him to this post to newsjack the post. This type mistake is far too common.

#2 Non Existant Branding

The next thing with this graphic is  was the logo was profoundly small and hard to identify. Therefore there was no tie back to the brand. And by not using the brand properly, the end user at a glance gave no one an idea of what the website is about. And speaking of the website there was no mention of the website. And again, this too is a common mistake. Especially from social media managers that have limited experience or younger. The artwork is great, but having no brand and no website reference. Its just ‘cool.’  If this did by some chance go viral, it would not benefit the business. Infact, instead of warm inviting pictures that personalized the brand, conversely there were no smiling faces enjoying the product.

#3  Forget the Cool – Help People Understand

It just continues to be apparent that many businesses have no clue how to harness social to help support their business, build a brand and rank.  They don’t understand the level of integration that is needed and how there has to be reciprocity and that the viewer or participant has to understand what the graphic has to do with the business in seconds especially when you aren’t offering any written perspective.

So the picture may be cool but if viewers can’t identify how that picture is related to your business in a split second, they are moving right past it. Picking the wrong picture or doing things in a cool factor that gives no nod to helping customers understand kills engagement and therefore will kill rankings.

#4  Correct Your Click

Often links are not passed back in a way the end user thought they would be. When posting to social with a buy now link, it would be a good habit to get into to actually send it to to the website where they could buy now. Additionally, if you make the transition from the social platform to your site too difficult you end up losing users there too. These are all things that damage your credibility and stop people from interacting with you in the future. Be clear, concise and trustworthy in all the places you take your end user, or risk losing them for good.

Just remember keeping your social integrated into your brand strategy is imperative for success. Keeping is isolated or treating it as a second class citizen is a real restrictor to digital success.