12/01/2017
If you’ve heard it once, you’ve heard it a thousand times… your business needs to be on social media. Which is true, it does, but there is definitely a small print that is being eclipsed from this sentence. Your business needs to be on social media, with a proper strategy and a consistent approach. It’s no good just having the pages, and it’s even worse if you’re pushing bad content.
Bad content can be a variety of things. If your posts are pointless, then it’s bad. If they’re boring, it’s bad. There is nothing worse than a business page filling up your feed with pointless and boring posts – it will lead to an unlike; and now, with algorithmic timelines your posts will disappear together.
The purpose of your post can be as simple as ‘comedic’, it just needs to benefit or engage your audience. You have a responsibility to give your consumers a message that they want to hear.
We’re currently living a ‘fake news epidemic’… or so Trump would like us to believe. If you’re sharing untrustworthy content, this can be extremely detrimental to your brand. Not only will it situate you as digitally novice, but outdated and unreliable. When it comes to sharing industry specific news, if it isn’t being reported on a reputable source (Reuters, BBC, Times, Guardian, etc.) then don’t touch it. If you’re promoting a product, just because social media pages aren’t official ads, doesn’t mean you can bend the truth.
Even if you’re producing great content, posting it at bad times will cause it to get lost in the crowd. For instance, are you promoting a well-researched, crafted and SEO rich blog at 11pm? No. Don’t do it, it’s a waste of your time and effort. You need to research what time your target audience are online, and what day of the week. On Facebook, you can even schedule your posts, so you can craft them at a different time.
But the worst, the holy grail of bad content, has to be posts that are offensive. The internet connects everyone, that means: every opinion, viewpoint, religion, political leaning and sexual orientation – which is a lot of people that can be offended.
Here’s a list of a few brands that have suffered at the hands of social media fails:
This is just a list I’ve written from memory; a little research could create a list into the hundreds. But, unfortunately for you, it’s pretty much obligatory for a business to be on social media. But, before you get completely bummed out, read our blog on the benefits of social media.
If you need help with getting social, we can help. If you’d just like daily marketing advice and news like this, like us on Facebook.
