Published on March 28th, 2019 | by Loius Martin

A list of Outdated Social Media Practices You Should Not Follow in 2019

Over the current decade, social media has proven its worth for brand marketing and promotion. In the present era, when every man and his dog is on social media. Brands have found a whole another space where they can strategically market their business and put their services/products on display in the most effective manner possible. Having said that, sometimes brands go overboard with their social media strategies; eventually, they end up using gimmicky tactics for their social media marketing.

First, you need to understand what makes social media a unique platform as compared to others? It’s the laidback and interactive nature of this medium that allows your brand to connect with the audience without any barrier. You do not want to distort the essence of the platform, for which you will have to steer clear of the peculiar, pretentious and gimmicky social media practices.

This blog is going to walk you through a list of such outdated social media practices that you need to stop doing right away or else be ready to pay the price of frivolous methods.

Don’t Use a Gazillion Hashtags

#Make #Sure #Your #Status #Does #Not #Look #Like #This

Gone are the days when statuses on social media used to be filled with random and unspecific fonts. Sadly, most of us still think it’s cool adding all sorts of hashtags popping in your mind at the time of crafting your social posts. Trust me; nothing can be more annoying than seeing a post which has more hashtags than the status itself. Especially on Instagram, brands stuff hashtags like there is no tomorrow. This madness should be stopped right away. If you really want to come across trustworthy and credible you need to bring a halt to this practice before it’s too late.

Hashtags are the crucial part of your social media posts, and they need to be picked thoughtfully after thorough research. Decide the hashtags and include them in your social media calendar so that you don’t need to think of them on the spot when you are writing your post. 3 and maximum 4 hashtags are enough; however, this may vary from site to site. Try not to exceed 5 hashtags per post. Again, all hashtags should be relevant to the topic you are writing about.

Say a Big NO to Automated Messages

Direct messages are pretty popular nowadays, which we believe belongs to the stone age of digital marketing. Suppose, someone has just followed your account on Twitter, in return, they got hit by an unsolicited thank you message (DM) in their inbox. Believe me, it feels nothing but pleasant when you get another spammy message in your inbox.

On social media, your audience loves to connect with the brands on a personal level, when they get generic thank you/welcome messages they get a feeling as if your brand is not human and a robot must have sent this. You need to humanize your brand, for which you will have to craft personalized replies for your followers. Or at least, your automated messages should provide valuable information to your customers.

Publishing Same Post Throughout Multiple Platforms

Apps like Hootsuite and Buffer facilitate social media marketers by providing them a platform from where they can shoot their social posts without facing the hassle of logging into each account separately. But that doesn’t give you the liberty to go lazy, send the same message across all the social sites and call it a day.

You need to understand that many people follow you on the multiple social media sites, if they keep seeing the same post across all your accounts they will feel that either you are posting stale content or you are too lazy to create fresh posts for your audience. Even worst, you may lose followers on some channels because the audience will feel as though they only need to follow you on one since you post the same messages on all of the channels. Have a look at social media donut’s example that will help you understand the nature of multiple social sites.

Treat their eyes with posts that are tailor-made by keeping the nature of respective social media site in mind. For instance, for Twitter write short and crisp tweets combined with trending and relevant hashtags, for Instagram post filtered and unfiltered photographs however, for Pinterest, you may get an informative and educative and appealing infographic designed for your audience.

Not Entertaining the Queries

Your brand promotion could also be done by the mainstream methods like TV commercials, print ads and other conventional methods so why do you need to be on social media? What makes the medium so unique? It’s the responsive nature and two-way communication factor which set the medium apart. Social media gives a voice to their followers. They feel free to communicate with their favorite brand. Not only this but if they have any query they head directly to the social platform, search the brand and ask the question they want. If you don’t respond to them quickly, they will feel as if they are being left on read.

Take your follower’s queries as a task you need to entertain on a priority basis. You skipped a post today on your social account. That’s fine, it causes you no damage, but if your queries are being left answered for more than two days, this can negatively impact you in many ways.

Luring People with Giveaways

Running a contest is no doubt an effective method to attract followers and increase engagement on your social media accounts. However, there are proper guidelines to run a contest/giveaway that need to be followed throughout execution. In the past, social media contest used to be an insightful way to attract the attention of your audience in the saturated marketplace, but the nature of target customers has taken a shift in 2019. Now you can’t just throw a giveaway in the face of the audience, and your brand will become an overnight success.

If you really want to take advantage of social media contests, you will have to craft a strategically planned giveaway which is audience-focused and has something beneficial to offer to the followers. Make sure your contest is thoughtfully designed to attract GenX , Gen Z and Millennials who own this marketplace. Other than that your contest should be designed not only for attention-grabbing, but it should be able to bring you long terms benefits such as lead generation, online engagement and much more.

Having Too Many Social Media Accounts

Creating an account is easy, giving due attention to each is not. You need to decide first which channel is suitable for your brand promotion. Multi-platform existence is good, but you need to find out where your audience is most active. At the same time, you need to be equally consistent throughout all the platforms. You shouldn’t be too much focused on a single account while all others are being neglected.

Do your research before you create your accounts, find where your audience exists and be present there. Bear the fact in mind, it’s not about being present everywhere, but it’s about finding the right place and putting the right amount of effort wherever required.

Source: viralwoot

Key Takeaway

Social media is full of opportunities; your social media strategies, if done right, can bring you maximum benefits. If you really want to leverage this medium to grow your business, first you need to steer clear of all the lousy practices that may cause adverse effects on your brand image. Be mindful of each action you are going to take on your social platforms. Each step you take should be strategically planned and must be destined to bring value to your brand.

Remember, the social media landscape is dynamic and it requires you to be flexible and adaptable to ever-changing trends. So before you set off your social media marketing journey, be mindful of all the redundant practices that are mentioned above and make sure you are not opting out any of the tactics stated her.

Tags: 2019, instagram, social, social media trends

About the Author

Loius Martin Loius Martin is a Creative Marketing Manager at Invictus Studio, a custom logo design company situated in Southlake. He has been guest blogging for quite a long time about design, search engine marketing, and branding.