Is your social media strategy just so-so and you’re looking for ways to improve it? Or maybe you feel it’s moving along pretty well, but are ready to up-level your social media game? Once you’ve made sure that you aren’t committing these 4 common social media mistakes on behalf of your small business, it’s the right time to dig deeper into ways to improve your social media strategy.

There are many things that you need to make sure you are doing right with your small business’ social media strategy, but at the same time, it’s just as critical to ensure you are avoiding these social media strategy mistakes, too.

5 Mistakes you are Making with your Small Business Social Media Strategy 

• Not creating and installing social media pixels At this time, nearly every social media platform has its own pixel, which is HTML code that allows you a way to track and accumulate platform users who visit your website while being logged into that social media account. Have you ever been shopping online at, say, Amazon, and then hop back over to Facebook where you see an ad for the exact product you were just viewing on Amazon? That’s a pixel! Even if you don’t have immediate plans to advertise on any given social media platform, it’s wise to spend the small amount of time needed creating and installing your pixels so that your custom website audiences grow and are ready for future use whenever that use may be.
• Not creating original content True, you *can* technically post content to your social media profiles that was written/created and published by someone else, but a 100% curated social media presence isn’t going to move the needle much for you. Your customers and potential customers want to read, see, be educated and inspired by you. The good news is that there are so many mediums now for creating and publishing content. Videos, blog posts and email newsletters, images and graphics, and podcasts provide you with all sorts of opportunities to create and publish content that showcases your experience, expertise, and personality. The key here really is that you are the one publishing the content vs sharing content created by someone else.
• Spreading yourself too thin If the overview of your social media strategy is “Do All The Things”, you probably are in trouble. As a small business, it’s not very likely that you have the time and resources to adequately establish and grow your brand in 4 or 5 or 6 different places. Simply put: you are spreading yourself too thin. The social media feeds are crowded places, so doing the bare minimum in a bunch of places isn’t going to benefit you like choosing a couple places to deeply invest in would.
• Not having a social media strategy with a (loose) posting calendar If you’ve never made a point to sit down and think through your social media goals, ideal client types and what would interest them on social media, mix of content to post that’s relevant and complementary to your business and clients, what kind(s) of social media content you’ll create yourself, and how often you want to post on your chosen social channels, you have not created a social media strategy for your small business. Keep in mind that you don’t need a lengthy, formally-written document to have a wonderful social media strategy. But you do need to work through each of those line items and make decisions on each to then move forward with.
• Not having an online marketing strategy Not to be confused with your small business social media strategy is your small business online marketing strategy. You might be wondering what the difference is between social media and online marketing. The short answer is this: social media is just 1 component of your online marketing strategy, and you need to ensure that all the work you are doing for your social media strategy supports and aligns with your broader and more comprehensive online marketing strategy.

Need help developing your social media strategy or perhaps a review of what you’ve been doing on your social media channels to learn what’s working and what’s not? Or maybe you’ve got your social media down pat but are in need of help to develop your integrated marketing strategy to pull together all that you are doing to market your small business? No matter your needs, we can help!