ith Stay At Home orders keeping us stuck inside, we’ve all been a bit more active on social media than usual. We rely on the sense of community and connection it brings us. I’ve been heartened to see so many compassionate posts, with people genuinely coming together (in spirit) to help each other through this tough period of isolation.
Now more than ever, many brands are using social media to get the message out. I wanted to take this opportunity to point out a few common mistakes I’ve seen that are easy to avoid. Here are a few ideas to keep in mind when creating your brand’s next post.
With so many businesses competing for attention, it’s important to make each post count. While posting frequently is a great way to engage your audience, it needs to be done with intention, otherwise it’s easy to lose focus and get lost in the noise.
Some brands thrive on daily posts, such as a life coach offering daily motivation, or a chef providing cooking tips and recipes. Other brands would benefit more from posting only weekly or even monthly. It all depends on your brand’s particular services, strategy, and audience. Sometimes less is more.
Take a moment and consider what your post is saying to your audience, and what they stand to gain by paying attention. If you’re posting frivolously just for the sake of engagement, you run the risk of lowering your impact with your audience when they tune in and gain nothing substantial. You’re showing them you don’t have much to say, and they’ll be less likely to show up next time.
Staying on-brand visually is just as important as holding to your message. You may be tempted to showcase some variety and mix up your imagery. However, by throwing in every color or font style that appeals to you in the moment, you’re undermining your brand’s visual impact and sending inconsistent signals.
Think about your brand’s logo. It’s probably made up of a few colors and a single font style. Your logo has to be immediately recognizable and instantly evoke a desired mood or feeling. The same is true of your social media posts. Your posts should be memorable and easily identifiable, even before people read a single word. When you keep your posts visually consistent, they make a much bigger impact on your audience.
This last one ties into my first point about being intentional. I’ve been seeing many posts published with typos and grammatical errors that can easily be avoided through simple proofreading. Fair or not, people will judge your brand on these seemingly small mistakes, and the last thing you want is someone being distracted or turned away from your message simply because you used the wrong “you’re”.
Before hitting that “publish” button, take a moment to review your text and make sure it’s free of these errors. If necessary, you can copy and paste your text into any word program, including Google’s free Docs, and it will light up any mistakes you’ve made so you can quickly see and correct them. This is painless, only taking a minute or two, and instantly improves your image as a professional.
These are all easy considerations to keep in mind next time you’re planning to post on social media. Stick to these guidelines and you’ll become much more effective at engaging and holding the attention of your audience. You’ll also help lower the blood pressure of detail-oriented people like me! Now get out there and make an impact!
I am a content strategist, writer, and editor based in Minneapolis. My indomitable eye for detail is both my gift and my curse. Awkward phrasing and typos seem to stand up and scream, “Fix me!” Having annoyed friends and family with this gift of mine for many years, I realized I should impose these services on the rest of the world. When I’m not writing and building my business you can find me nursing my obsession with sci-fi novels or trying out a new recipe.
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