Social media has become a prominent platform for businesses today. Small businesses establish themselves over the web through this easily accessible and

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Saikrishna Tipparapu
5 Mistakes Made by Companies on Social Media
Social media has become a prominent platform for businesses today. Small businesses establish themselves
over the web through this easily accessible and affordable marketing option.
However, not everyone is able to benefit from this profitable venture. Not because they don’t make efforts, but
because they utilize it in a wrong way.
Let’s have a look at 5 major mistakes that businesses make while marketing through social media platform.
#1 No strategy
A wise man once said ‘if you fail to plan, you plan to fail’. The same applies to business planning as well. You
ought to have a dedicated strategy in advance for promotion of your business through social media before
stepping ahead.
Focus on the following aspects while developing a promotional plan:
Know what your customers want.
Identify a branding method, such as color, images, etc., and follow it consistently.
Way to deal with consumer complaints
Determine the most appropriate time to post and engage with people
Strategy to expand your reach
Branding plays a vital role in the success of any small or big business. Maintaining consistency with the color
scheme, logo usage and other similar aspects every time you release some content create a greater impact on
viewers than usual.
To develop a plan to deal with complaints of customers is no rocket science. You just have to ensure than you
reply to ALL the complaints and as quickly as possible. Don’t remove genuine complaints; rather accept your
mistakes and do your best to resolve customer queries. If someone constantly uses abusive language, give them
a warning not to do so and block them in case they don’t learn.

2. #2 Publishing inappropriate posts
See what you post and what you share on your business page. It’s important to look at the source of certain
content before sharing it with your followers.
Sharing inappropriate content or post won’t please your followers. If some post requires viewers to click to view,
double check on such a post before sharing. If it turns out to be a hoax, it’s going to do more harm to your
reputation than you can imagine.
#3 Dropping promotion of business page/profile
Many small business firms start with a bang, creating profiles and pages whether its t rending on social media
or not but on different social media marketing platforms. However, the craze gets over within a month when they
do not see the desired results. As a result, even if a customer contacts you through the page, you are most likely
to not reply since you do not promote it anymore. This harms your social presence greatly.
It’s important to understand that fans and followers do not come within a few weeks. It takes months to take your
page to larger mass and make them engage on it.

3. #4 Avoid too much automation
Most businesses use different software to schedule their posts or thank followers personally on social media
sites. The automation is followed to such an extent that, for instance, every new follower of yours on Twitter
receives a thanks message.
While there is no harm in doing so, it might look fake or automated to the customer as well which does not give a
good impression. Your followers are most likely to prefer a message sent to them by a human being than a piece
of latest technology.
Some businesses also use verification software that requires new users to verify that they’re human before they
could follow them. Isn’t that going to piss you as a customer?
#5 Everything or nothing
Either don’t indulge with the audience to follow you on social media; if you do, make it a rigorous attempt to
make a solid mark. Avoid being rude to followers’ queries as if it is your personal account and avoid being over-
promotional. No customer would want to read only about your products all the time. Serve them with some
interesting content too.
Conclusion
There’s no hidden secret to make the most of social media networking. Most small businesses fail to get the
basics right and end up making a mess of their social presence.
Consistent work along with a bit of common sense can help you make a great impact on social media users.
Follow the above-mentioned 5 basic strategies and you’ll soon be flying on your social media network before you
know it.