Posting fails that are killing your traffic

Your social media marketing efforts are too important to leave to chance. This is an area that can drive serious traffic to your site and, if really done right, can be a huge help with turning that traffic into conversions. However, there are far too many small businesses that are leaving this to chance and who are making amateur mistakes that are simply killing them. Here are just a few posting disasters you need to seriously avoid if you want to improve your traffic and your brand awareness out on social media.

• One of the more serious blunders are those companies that are not using original photos for their posts. Sure, standard stock images might be fine if your blog is business related and looks to helpfully educate but if you want to get your audience fired up about you and your company use original photos. Get shots of satisfied customers. Get some behind the scenes shots. Get some of your employees to pose or show them hard at work helping their customers get what they need. Make it personal. make it so your audience can relate to you and your company as real people trying to help them overcome problems.
• Another blunder is using too many hashtags. While they are most useful much of the time, too many companies are using far too many which is just irritating your visitors. Never use more than three per post or your visitors will just click away. That is not the way to build brand awareness, trust and loyalty.
• Leave your politics and other personal opinions where they belong – in your head. The best way to alienate customers is to spout your opinions about everything at them especially your political ones. No one cares what you think. They only care about how you are going to solve a problem they have or how you are going to bring added value into their lives.
• A gigantic mistake many brands, even the major ones, are making is to trying to be what they are not. They are running news stories and viral videos as well as sports and celebrity updates. They are not coming to your social media site for that. All you are doing is confusing them and causing their eye to roam and get dizzy. The focus should always be you and what you are going to do for them and why they should choose you over your rivals. If they want to know the latest celebrity gossip, they are not likely to come to you for that anyway. Stop wasting space and removing the focus from your calls to action.

-Written by Kevin Sawyer