Nowadays, everyone has social media, and the simple process of recording content, uploading it to social media, and clicking “publish” makes us all social media savvy, believing that all we have to do is post and that’s it.
This is a reality that I come across in my daily life, but the truth is that the unintentional gaze of those who deal with social media without a defined strategy always ends up with difficulties in achieving quality results (yes, quality, and that’s one of the subjects I’m talking about today).
Before any publication, there are a series of tasks (which are also part of a strategy defined a priori) to be carried out, either to achieve quality results or to represent a brand and its personality well.
For all the fruits of these tasks to be relevant to our objectives, we need to avoid falling into some traps created by our insecurities and lack of knowledge, such as:
Followers: Quantity vs. Quality
We invest in online advertising, share the page with friends and family, and buy follower packs and accounts with high numbers… And suddenly, that number next to our profile picture takes away all the years of study, learning, challenges, and victories we’ve achieved so far and becomes representative of all our relevance and expertise in the industry (whatever it may be).
And believe me: I’d love it if the number of followers paid bills and made businesses grow (financially, of course). I wish I could get money for every photo of the sky I share with my humble 800 followers. But that’s not really how it works.
The need to see the number of followers increase makes us forget that quality also matters.
After all, how many of your 500 purchased followers will interact with your content? How many of your 50 friends and family – whom you’ve asked to follow your page – are going to buy your new collection?
The higher the quality rating of your followers, the more and better customers you’ll have. And what are these quality followers? Followers who:
- Are interested in and interact with your content;
- Know your brand (or are willing to get to know it);
- Give you feedback on your products and services
Resuming: quality followers are your community.
And I hate to disappoint, but many of these followers are not part of your family or group of friends.
It is in the community that you should be focused on: creating a strong community that shows up without the need to beg for their attention.
Delivering content without value for the community
Imagine this situation: you follow an account on a social network that you love because they share daily about the big hits and news from the movie world. One day, the owner – someone you’ve never seen before and have no relationship with – decides to share about the food he feeds his fish.
You’d probably be surprised: you’ve never seen this person on the page and they appear, without any kind of context, to talk about fish food.
This person may have done this for various reasons, such as:
- He/She wants to change the direction of the page and start sharing more about fish;
- They’re excited about having pet fish;
- They were paid by the fish brand to share the product.
But the truth is that none of these make the act logical and of value to your community. Let’s name him Robert:
- If Robert wanted to change the direction of the page, he could have simply started a new one or let his community know that he’d like to talk about something else;
- If Robert was excited about having a pet fish, it would make more sense to share it with his friends and family (who already have some affection for him) and not with strangers who didn’t even know he existed;
- If Robert was paid by the fish brand to share the product, neither the brand nor he, the owner of the social media account, are aware of the community they have.
Attitudes like this end up breaking the relationship that the owner has with their community, generating distrust; because it is content that is not of quality for the people who follow it.
So remember: before you share any content on your social networks, try to figure out if it’s relevant to the community and if you’re delivering value.
Being everywhere
It’s common to see brands creating new accounts on every new social network that appears on the internet. Some of the reasons are:
- They want to keep up with the trends;
- It’s new, so they want to “test it out”.
But it’s not always advantageous for a brand:
- Your community isn’t present on the social network;
- Your content isn’t suitable for the social network;
- You haven’t prepared an entry strategy.
And so: by not having your community present, by not creating suitable content, and by not following any efficient strategy, keeping up with the trends is no longer of value to you and those who follow you. Weeks later, you end up abandoning the social network because “it didn’t work”. That’s why I advise you to wait and carefully analyze everything that’s happening on the social network to see what kind of approach you should take.
These 3 pitfalls are present on all social networks – I dare you to look – and they will certainly hinder your path and boycott your success.
What are the pitfalls you often encounter on social media?
