Many businesses, irrespective of their size, have made social media blunders that have caused a huge embarrassment to them. Although they tend to delete the posts quickly after realizing the mistake, the screenshots of the posts haunt the brands continuously. Haste in publishing the posts to meet the deadline of an editorial calendar is one of the main reasons for such developments. The mistakes might be subtle, but it reflects poorly on your business.
As a business owner, it may be overwhelming to maintain a social media presence of your business. However, you can’t ignore it as it reflects the identity of your business to your target audience and the external world. Thus, you must develop a framework for social media marketing to avoid such mistakes on social media. Development of a framework also generates insights on what is working well. Most importantly, it boosts scalability of your social media marketing efforts.
Here are a few critical ways to avoid these lapses in Social Media Marketing.
#1. Review before you Hit the Publish Button
Prepare a quick checklist for publishing posts on social media. Once you have curated the post, examine it with the help of a checklist before you hit the publish button. Over time, it will become a habit, and the possibilities of errors will be substantially reduced. It will also help you scale your marketing operations in case you decide to hire someone else to do social media marketing for you. Thus, never skip the checklist before broadcasting content with your followers even if you are in a hurry or have no time. Remember, that social media plays a critical role in building trust for a business and you must use the platform carefully to build the trust.
Quick tip – Never include more than three things in the checklist. Else, it will be cumbersome to review it on a regular basis.
#2. Use a Social Media Scheduling Software
A sound planning can mitigate the risks of errors in social media marketing significantly. Use scheduling tools and social media marketing software that allow you to review and schedule the posts in advance. You can prepare weekly or monthly posts in advance whenever you have sufficient time. This will help you eliminate the last-minute haste and human errors that are caused due to rush in publishing social media posts.
A scheduling software also helps you manage the access to your social media pages effectively. So whenever you plan to outsource your social media marketing efforts, you only need to give one-click access to all your pages through the software. Also, your team will have limited rights, and therefore, you will never have to worry about damage to your reputation if something goes wrong with your partners or teams. They will never assign admin rights to themselves (which usually happen when the bitterness pops up in the relationships).
#3. Tools to Review Language Errors
Curating content becomes easy when you focus on the idea and not on the nitty-gritty of the language or grammar. Use proofreading software such as Grammarly to spot and remove common errors like spelling mistakes, punctuations, prepositions, etc. The software doesn’t eliminate the need for a human proofreader. However, it can help immensely in writing better content quickly.
#4. Take Help
Being a small business owner is not easy. The commitment towards the family as well as towards the business may be frustrating at times. The number of petty things that must be done to run the core business smoothly can be overwhelming. Thus, you may ask a family member to assist you in curating the content or reviewing your drafts. You may also hire a professional social media freelancer to do a part of social media activities. Use freelancing marketplaces such as Upwork or Guru to hire experienced professionals.
Remember that hiring external experts will not solve your problem or reduce risks. You need to invest time in providing them a right direction. Else, they will work in their style which may not be suitable for your brand. Thus, write everything (the process) on a piece of paper and ask the new team to strictly adhere to the process. Of course, they can use their creativity and come up with better strategies, but it must be in sync with your brand’s vision.
#5. Image Editing Tools
Social media marketing requires you to work with images. Not everyone is proficient in using tools like Photoshop or Illustrator. They usually rely on an external graphic designer to create useful images of the infographic. A lot of errors happen due to the communication gap between the client and the graphic designer.
You can use the combination of stock images and image editing tools like Canva or Pablo to create graphics quickly without going through the hassle of hiring a designer. Saving the images in Google Drive folder and arranging them on weekly or a monthly basis will help you search and reuse those images in the future. It will not only make you more efficient but also helps in reducing errors in the graphic designing process.
#6. Be Authentic While Addressing Blunders
You may still make mistakes even after all checks and balances. If there is a controversy or undesired response from social media users, you must act to address the users’ concerns. Be authentic, genuine and humble while responding to abusive or angry tweets or posts. Don’t go overboard, never take things personally and don’t be emotional while dealing with the social media outrage against you. We all make mistakes. What is more important is to realize the mistake, accept it candidly and take corrective measures so that it is not repeated. If the mistake deserves an apology, then do apologize without any hesitation. The central idea is to be lively and confident and put your arguments logically to address your followers’ concerns.
Conclusion
It is crucial to be original and fearless to succeed on social media. You don’t need to follow any norm to market your brand. Taking risks and going out of the way is a part of any successful marketing strategy. However, you must place proper systems in place so that the social media marketing doesn’t become awkward for your brand. Also, minor mistakes related to language, facts, etc. must be avoided to create the right perception of your brand.
