What’s your social media marketing plan consist of? Seriously, is it just blasting out links on Facebook and Twitter and waiting for traffic to come to you? If that’s all you’re doing on the socials, then you’re doing it wrong. You might be doing some other things wrong too.
So take a deep breath ’cause today we’re looking at 6 outdated social media tactics that you should stop doing right now, if you’re still doing them. ::crosses fingers that we’re not doing any of them::
- Only Posting Links. Social media is about being social. If you’re just posting links, you’re f*****g up.
- What to do instead: you can share links, but balance it with posts that don’t link anywhere, images that don’t link, conversation starters, etc.
- Jumping from Follow to Pitch. If you’re hitting your followers with an automated pitch for your product/services, you’re doing it wrong.
- What to do instead: you can still pitch to followers, but let them warm up first. Engage with them, add meaningful comments to their posts, and tag them in posts when relevant.
- Mass Following to Gain Followers. Following and unfollowing accounts might “work” but it really only works with other accounts that automatically follow anyone who follows them. This isn’t helpful. Stop it.
- What to do instead: Read this – 9 Tips to Get More Followers.
- Obeying “Best Times to Post” Studies. If you’re blindly following “best practices,” you’re screwing up. Your followers are a unique audience. Don’t treat them like an average of someone else’s research.
- What to do instead: Use Facebook Insights for Facebook, and simply test the other platforms! Start with a benchmark, and test based off of that.
- Not Optimizing Your Content for Sharing. Research shows that social sharing is declining. If you’re giving readers every available sharing option, you’re doing it wrong.
- What to do instead: Limit readers’ choices. Find the two or three most popular platforms for your audience, and put only those share icons on your web page. Also, use click-to-tweet pullouts that have pre-populated content.
Skipped over a few good suggestions…
