I know, I know. The title seems harsh, right? It’s not meant to be. In fact, I’d categorize it more along the lines of “tough love”.

Because here’s the thing: We want you to be successful with your social media marketing. We know that you want to be successful, too. But sometimes your actions and only your actions create the biggest of hurdles between your business and social media success.

If you can identify with any of the examples below, you’re likely holding yourself and your business back to some degree.

8 Reasons you Won’t Succeed with Social Media

• You don’t play by each platform’s rules I hate to break it to you, but as badly as you want to do things your way on your chosen social media platforms, you aren’t going to succeed if you work like that. Each platform has its own mode of operation, lingo, best practices, and ways that users like to act and be treated. You might think something is dumb, weird, or doesn’t make sense to you, but there’s really nothing you can do to change that. Try to accept each platform for what it is and how it works, and your business will benefit as a result.
• You don’t take the time to understand social media Building off the last point…it’s going to help you immensely if you take the time to learn about social media. To manage your own social media, you’ll need to understand and learn about each platform’s best practices, plus content generation. But even to have someone else manage your business’ profiles for you is going to require you to grasp what social is all about. You don’t have to be an expert. You don’t need to know the Ins and Outs of all the social media platforms. You really only need to understand the basic Who, What, Where, When, and Why concepts. But without learning those basics, you will have a negative impact on your marketing and advertising campaigns, and potentially your business reputation, too.
• You don’t give social media enough time Yes, social media moves fast! But it’s not magic. The sales process doesn’t move any faster simply because you are now on Facebook. Potential customers still need to hear about you, become acquainted with your business, have a reason to trust you, and then have a need to purchase what you are selling before they’ll buy from you. You can’t think about what kind of impact social media will have 1 or 2 months from now because you’d be judging its effectiveness far too early.
• You don’t integrate social media with the rest of your marketing Your social media accounts are 1 more tool in your marketing toolbox. If they are thought of as an add-on or a separate function of their own, your social media accounts are never going to work for you like they could (and should). Build in your social media strategy as part of your overall marketing strategy.
• You don’t engage others Posting photos to Instagram without paying any attention to other users’ images isn’t going to do much. Tweeting sales messages and nothing else isn’t going to help. Social media is supposed to be social, so if a good chunk of your social strategy doesn’t include the active engagement of other users, you’re wasting your time.
• You don’t set realistic expectations You aren’t going to get 1,000 followers in 2 days, so don’t set that as a goal. You wouldn’t expect to earn 1,000 new sales within 2 days of opening your doors for business either. When in doubt, think real life! It’s amazing how many offline parallels there are in the online business world.
• You don’t grow your presence with real people Again building off the point above, you should never try to game the system by purchasing fakes fans or fake followers. Not even for the reason of “social proof”. Do you know what’s worse than a new account with only a few dozen followers? An account with a few thousand followers and zero engagement. Plus, purchasing followers is against terms of service, and could get your account shut down.
• You don’t portray your business in a positive light It could be the content you choose to share on your business’ social media profiles. It could be the words you use. Or it could be your spelling and grammar. Social media doesn’t need to be formal, but it does need to portray a positive, professional representation of your brand.

Make sure you are doing all that you can to help your business success on social media…while also ensuring you aren’t unknowingly hurting your success, too.