4 Simple Ways To Change Your Social Media To Keep Customers Happy

Are your friends and customers unfriending/unfollowing you on social and you don’t know why?

At 365 we spend a lot of time on social media! Because we are on there so much, we see the good, the bad and the ugly!

To see what qualified a business or person for being put in the bad or ugly category, we decided to poll our students to ask them what their pet peeves were when it comes to how people use their social media accounts.

We came up with 4 pet peeves! We have described them below. Do you fit in to any of these categories? If you do, we have some small changes that you can do to make sure you stay on trend and keep your friends and customers active on your social media platforms and hopefully not running away!.

Let’s see if you relate to any of these posting “syndromes”:

PROBLEM – The Over-Poster

Are you posting all day long? Then you qualify as our “Over-Poster”. We are so happy that you love every aspect of your life, but we really don’t all need to see it all day long (it could be we are just completely jealous of you but really, give others a chance to be seen too!).

Of course, for very special occasions or events, then over-posting is a little bit more acceptable, but at other times, please take a moment to decide whether you really need to post that piece to your page.

SOLUTIONS

When Instagram came up with Stories, it gave all those with the need to share and share some more a great venue to do so!  So instead of posting straight to your page all day, you can keep adding to your story. You can take a live pic, or you can add a photo from your camera (just swipe up from the bottom when in the story app). This is a brilliant way for your clients/customers and friends to see your day, but they can make the choice to watch your story or not. It is simply awesome!

Or maybe you want lots of pictures to show what has been occurring that day. Again, no problem! But try this instead. On both Instagram and Facebook you can post multiple images in the same post too. So group your favourite pics and post them all together.

On Instagram, it is more “on trend” to use the slide show option than the multi pictures in one frame.

Facebook albums is another great place to put all your pics from a certain date or occasion and then share that album.

Twitter is a great platform for being able to post all day long and we will use this for a lot of our events. The feed moves so quickly in Twitter that it works well to post at intervals all day. But do take note… intervals is great! Seeing the same person/business in the feed all in a row can also be enough for people to unfollow.

PROBLEM – The Once In Awhile Poster

We should qualify this. It is not the once in awhile poster that drives us a bit crazy, it is the one who never posts and then in one day becomes the over poster, to then become a never poster for weeks on end again.

One of the key messages we like to give our clients is that consistency is key (thus why we are called 365 Day Media). So if you only want to post every few days then do that but be consistent. You do need to be aware that the algorithms for social media means that the less you post, the less likely you will be seen when you do post. So do your best to stay consistent.

SOLUTIONS

We use Hootsuite a lot at 365 Day Media. This allows us to schedule out posts far in advance to ensure that even on those days when we are busy and can’t post, we have something already in the schedule. It is a great way to make sure that you are remaining consistent!

And please try not to be that person that fills up their feed all in one day only to leave us hanging for weeks to come. That’s just no fun!

PROBLEM – The Auto-Poster

By auto-poster, we mean posting something on Instagram and then auto-posting it to Facebook.  There are a number of issues with this, but the jury is still out with various social media managers on what is best here.

At 365, we strive to have original content on each platform. The problem with auto-posting is that each platform is so different in how they are read and followed. Putting 20 hashtags and tags in a post on Instagram and then auto-posting to Facebook means that your Facebook post is going to have all those hashtags too (which you may have noticed, hashtags still aren’t a thing in Facebook). And any tags of businesses or people that you do in Instagram will not hyperlink in Facebook. So that is just a waste of a great post!

SOLUTIONS

That doesn’t mean you can’t use the same photo in the platforms. But take the time to post separately, converting your text to make sense on each of the platforms.

Plus don’t forget that you will have the same followers on some of your platforms. You want to keep that in mind with your posts. If you are going to put the same picture on all your platforms, then make sure you space them out on your timeline.

PROBLEM – The Overzealous Product Placer

There is a rule in social media regarding how much to post about your brand on your platforms. Nobody wants to be sold to 100% of the time. You need to find that fine balance between selling and promoting interesting information for your clients.

SOLUTIONS

So mix it up. There are two rules of thought which basically mean the same thing – the 80/20 rule where only 20% should be about the sale or the Rule of Thirds where you promote your business 1/3 of the time, you share social content from others in your industry 1/3 and you share personal/behind the scenes/humanizing side of the business 1/3 of the time.

That first 1/3 is the time for product placement, sharing, sales, etc.

But during the other 2/3s, try not to place product in every comment. If it fits naturally into the conversation, then great. But if the leap is a bit large to naturally bring up your company services or products, then don’t do it. Not every post has to be about the latest and greatest!

For instance, if you are sharing a brilliant TedX talk from a thought leader in your industry, you do not have to make a sales pitch for your services. Just let it be about the thought leader. That’s all.

What do you think? Are you guilty of any of the above? Don’t worry, we have all been there at some point and we still find ourselves making some of these errors on occasion.

That is okay! But just don’t make it a habit and you will keep all your friends and customers excited for your next post!

Do you have any pet peeves that you would like us to talk about in our next blog. Drop us a line and let us know!