Last day, I was reading a meme, which basically meant you don’t actually need to literally die to die, but just delete your social media handles and people will think you are dead. Funny, isn’t it? But, deep!

It is 2020 and everybody is on the internet now. But, here’s how I see it: It is 2020 and there are people and parts of the population who NEED to be on the internet. And that range from celebrities to small and medium businesses. Celebrities to captivate the attention of their fans and businesses to reach out to their target audience.

Talking about the businesses, social media is one of the easiest and most cost-effective ways to reach out to the audience, especially when you are at the initiation phase. The number of audience present on social media is massive: around 2.65 billion people as estimated in 2018! Considering the gigantic number, one silly mistake can cost you your reputation built over the years and sometimes even capital. The reason why I have cited some of the most common mistakes that SMBs commit and you should not:

1. Not having a clear goal in mind

If you don’t have the initiative to perform on social media, you will not only appear pointless but also put-off the traffic that you were most likely to gain. But, quite the contrary SMB’s are often found doing this. They create a social media page even before the business comes into existence (because well you NEED to be on social media) and then start posting random bits of content. 

This replicates that you are neither clear about your objective nor about the message that you wish to deliver via your social media posts. So here’s what you can do: Establish a clear mindset and identify your goals, and make sure all of your activities align to achieve that defined goal. 

2. Treating your social media account as a dumping ground

Or put simply, not engaging with your audience. The primary reason why people follow you on social media is for engagement, and if you treat your account like a bulletin board updating your followers on recent announcements and latest releases, there’s no way in the world that you can achieve the desired.

To escape this, fun content and conversational tone must be your key. In fact, the best is to appoint an SMM or social media manager who is well aware of all the dynamics of social media and will dedicate his entire time solely to gauge visitors on your profiles and convert them into leads.

3. Creating mediocre content

One of the major causes, why SMBs fall into the trap of mediocre content, is that they try to plant their feet everywhere in the limited resources, i.e. they have an account on all the social media platforms currently in existence: Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, etc. Presence is certainly very important, but if you fail to manage them simultaneously, what’s the whole point of the hustle?

Understand that you are a human and you cannot do all by yourself. Omnipresence demands a team that usually comes with a price, which in the initiation phase of your business is tough to afford. So instead pick one or maybe two where your audience is present in the maximum number.

4. Not creating a social media policy

Absence of social media policy can breed several opportunities for the general public to finger-point certain things that can further put you in a very embarrassing situation. 

On the contrary, a comprehensive social media policy will enable you and your team about internal policies, like the activities that must be performed in the permission range and procedure that must be followed. Plus, your audience and external users know what is deemed as inappropriate, and what steps will be taken if any activity is performed in this specifies criteria.

So draft a social media policy if you haven’t already, it protects your organization, saves public humility, and hence deserves a lot of time and energy.

5. Not having a record of your social media activity

Imagine this: You invest a considerable number of hours to your social media strategy every day, and then one fine day you wake up to find that all your data vanishes into thin air. Frustrating, right?

Monitoring and recordkeeping of data that is constantly updated are difficult. But irrespective of the complexity, it is extremely crucial to archive your social media content and comply with open record laws. Leverage technology and employ tools that can automate the entire procedure. Tech geeks are constantly working to make things easy for you. And it’s their hard work that we are leveraging today.

There are many social media archiving tools available for us to make use of. Stillio is one name among them which is a complete web archiving tool and not just limited to social media properties. It is not just another alternative for Wayback Machine but does wonders when it comes to automate the archiving.

So just don’t wait for a PR disaster or legal trouble to knock on your door before you evaluate ways to effectively monitor and store data. Things have changed, and focusing on social media content will only make your business better and bigger. Yes, changes would not happen overnight, but they surely will happen over time.