The world of social media can be a spooky place to navigate if you aren’t familiar with it. Between tweets, DM’s, likes, and shares, it can feel overwhelming trying to follow the breadcrumbs leading to social success. The art of social media isn’t about becoming a master of the selfie or creating a viral tweet that will put you on the map. You need to set realistic goals as you incorporate your social profiles into your WordPress website.
Here’s our list of five social media fails that can ruin your online presence.
1.) Not linking your social handles to your website.
In today’s fast-paced environment, users want access to any and everything in one click.
One of the first social media fails a user can make is not linking their social media handles to their website. Think of your website as a pumpkin and your social handles are the light that makes a spooky jack-o-lantern. Adding social handles to a website provides your audience with direct access to explore your other platforms which can increase your traffic and engagement.
Whether you have one or five social media accounts, adding your accounts to your website increases your visibility and gives users a different way to connect with you. As people become familiar with your WordPress website, you’ll be able to leverage that traffic to your social accounts as well. You don’t have to be a social media guru in order to feature it on your site.
Social media can help amplify your online voice, so choosing what accounts you want to share with your audience is vital. Don’t forget that keeping your social media updated with your latest content is important to avoid linking accounts to your site that you don’t regularly use.
2.) Social profiles that aren’t updated with content relevant to your brand.
Nothing goes bump in the night like promoting social media that has outdated brand content. Let’s say your WordPress website is about cupcakes, but you only post pizza pictures on your Instagram account…it’s not the best reflection of your brand.
Is pizza great? Of course! Does it have anything to do with your rainbow frosted cupcake blog, not exactly!
You need to incorporate your website content into your social media profiles if you plan on promoting them on your site. Each social platform can be used as an extension of your brand and has the power to amplify your content. Using multiple accounts works to your advantage, but you want your social media to reflect a cohesive brand.
Organizing your social content to reflect your theme, voice, and the overall tone of your website is important to how users will engage with it. If your social media isn’t beneficial to users engaging with your website, they won’t follow you. If you are worried about maintaining a consistent posting schedule, developing a social media strategy is a great idea to keep your content on brand.
3.) An inconsistent posting schedule that keeps us guessing.
Haunted houses are full of thrills and frights at every corner, but social media is not the place to keep people guessing. Any new content added to your website needs to be shared or posted on social media. The easiest way to lose engagement with users is not having a regular schedule when you are sharing new content.
You have to treat your website and social content like your right and left hand, one goes in tandem with the other.
If curating content from your website to your social media seems like a daunting task, there are plugins and third-party resources like Hootsuite or Sprout24 for helping schedule and post to your accounts in advance.
Creating content is one piece of the social media puzzle; however it can fall flat if you don’t engage with your community.
4.) Not engaging with your audience.
Being a ghost may be a classic costume for Halloween, but it doesn’t go over well with social media users. The quick world of social media requires you to be timely and keep your followers updated. Just as you respond to comments and questions from your audience on your website, your social accounts require an equal commitment. How you engage can impact your traffic, growth, and success for your social media.
Users can engage with your social media content through likes, retweets, shares, and even commenting under a blog post. Engaging with your followers can help you learn what parts of your content could be improved. Setting aside time to engage with your followers so you can use their questions, comments, and insights to improve your content is important.
Silence is not golden on social media. The best way to avoid any dip in engagement is to make sure your content plays on the strength of each social platform.
5.) Too much of the same, duplicate content across multiple platforms.
The last thing you want your social media to resemble is a graveyard. Rows and rows of duplicated content across Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook that has no authenticity for your followers.
If you don’t want to create individualized content for your accounts, you can pick your favorite and build your audience before branching out to others. Starting small and focusing on one platform can prevent you from getting overwhelmed and help you learn the communication style of that audience.
Give your followers some variety by playing up the strengths of that social account with specific posts to break up any redundancies in your posts. This can also help you become more comfortable learning which platform serves your content best. You may learn that you prefer the combined text and media of Facebook rather than Instagram’s media-rich style that consist of photographs.
You can’t have multiple social platforms and not understand how each serves a different audience. Not every platform works for everyone— and that’s okay. Sharing duplicate content can save time and boost the performance of a blog, sale, or product you are promoting. Just remember that mixing it up can be great for your site since no two social media sites display your content the same.
Social media is about creating or providing more treats for your prospective audiences. Avoiding these social fails can help you amplify your website and social accounts as they continue to compliment each other.
What’s your favorite social platform to use? What type of content do you share with your audience?
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