Have you ever wondered if you’re using social media properly? Maybe you look at some other businesses profiles and think, why aren’t I getting those results? There could be all sorts of reasons for that, but we’re willing to bet part of your struggle is due to some of your own bad social media habits. And in the spirit of starting the new year off right, it’s time to banish them for good and take control of your profiles! Because if you are on social media, whatever the network or reason, you need to understand exactly how your activity is reflecting on your business. So today, here are our top 4 bad social media habits that businesses need to cut out right now.

Buying Likes And Follows

Let’s start with the cardinal sin of social media. There is some credence to the theory that accounts with lots of followers will look better and encourage more people to follow in turn but buying likes and follows is not the way to do it. Unfortunately, there is a thriving industry of ‘buyable’ followers out there – you’ve probably been followed by one of their promo accounts at one point or another. This is one of the worst things you can do for your social media. Firstly – what’s the point in having a bunch of followers who aren’t active or interested in your product? You might as well be broadcasting your message to a graveyard. Secondly, buying likes and follows will have a huge negative impact on your search engine rankings.

Lazy Cross-Posting

Cross-posting (posting exactly the same content across multiple social networks at exactly the same time) is the subject of some controversy in the marketing community. Especially with tools like Hootsuite making it easier than ever to just push your content out with one click. If you’re strapped for time or even ideas, this can be a really tempting proposition. But the problem with cross-posting is that all social networks are different, which means they all need to be treated differently. Some network-specific features like hashtags and mention symbols can look clunky on other networks, or even interfere with the message you’re trying to send. Character limits wreak havoc with URLs, and above all, it looks lazy to anyone who happens to follow you on both platforms.

Using Things That Aren’t Yours

Let’s clear something up here. Just because you found something cool on Google doesn’t mean you can use it in your business promotions. Using other people’s work for your own benefit (whether that’s images, videos, blog posts or even music) is not only unethical and disrespectful to the person who did create it – it’s illegal. It also reflects pretty badly on your business, especially if someone notices that you’re using images that don’t belong to you. That doesn’t mean you can never use anything – many people get around this by crediting the owner of the material or tagging them in the post, so your followers know that it isn’t yours. There’s also a wealth of stock images, music and even video galleries that you can plunder for rights-free materials. So make sure you’re not risking the heavy fines and negative backlash and only use credited or rights-free material. Or, you know, create your own!

Me, Me, Me!

Social media has a bit of a reputation for bringing out the narcissists in all of us (I mean, how many people really care what you had for breakfast?), and businesses are no exception to that rule. When posting on social media, way too many businesses are always looking for a way of turning the conversation back to themselves. Shameless self-promoting, constant broadcasting or promotions and a general refusal to enter a discussion unless you can promote your own business are all great ways to ensure your social media performance stays low. Instead, businesses need to be thinking more outwardly with their social media interactions. Asking your audience questions, participating in trending threads, weighing in on industry news or handing out useful (genuinely useful, not pretend useful) information are all great ways of generating real conversations and interest in your brand. We are firm believers in the rule of thirds, which basically says that your social media activities should be:

• One-third content that promotes your business, converts readers, and generates sales.
• One-third content that shares ideas, stories, and industry news.
• One-third personal interactions with followers.

You might think this all sounds extreme, we’ve seen all of this before, too many times to count. Luckily, there is a fairly easy fix to these problems. You’ve just taken the first step – which is learning about what those bad habits are, and more importantly why. Now you need to do that hard bit – learn the right techniques to make social media work for you, then put them into practice.

Of, if that all sounds too complicated and time-consuming, you can call us. At Moyralla Marketing we live and breathe social media, and it’s our job to make you look good online while you’re off doing other things. If you never find time to social media right, or you just want someone else to handle it, we would love to help. Just click the link right here to book your free, no-obligation chat with us today.