Don’t Fall for Social Media Fool’s Gold
Everyone loves a shortcut: a shorter route home, a shorter way to send a text, a shorter navigation on your computer. Shortcuts make your life easier, most of the time. Social media is a place where many people, brands, and companies try to take shortcuts – but this won’t make their (or your) life easier.
Social media shortcuts can make your accounts seem like they are shining like a beautiful piece of gold; however, behind your account there is nothing of substance: fool’s gold.
Today, we’re breaking down the three biggest shortcuts and how you can combat them:
Buying Likes or Followers
Engagement is key to real success on all social media platforms. So, if you are buying likes and followers from bots or burner accounts, your account’s following may look strong when it is in fact, all fake.
Combat This By:
Engage with your followers, timelines, and inspirations – for real! Start conversations, like, reply to comments on your posts, reply to Facebook and Instagram stories. Don’t be afraid to follow someone first. When you generate engagement, engagement will bounce back to you, and with that, your following (both online and in real life) will grow.
Stock Photos
We love stock photos, but they have their time and place. Social media? Not one of them. Unless you have a massive social media budget where you can afford to buy five or more quality stock photos a week, the free stock photo sites are, well, obviously stock photos. Like buying likes and followers, using stock photos can make your account look fake.
Combat This By:
Investing in a lifestyle photographer who can take a large batch of photos of your product, people, and culture will help you in the long run. People engage with people, they like seeing people, especially people they know. You can also work with your creative team to create graphics that are unique to your brand.
Hashtags
Hashtags are a great tool to help people discover your brand, start a conversation, and contribute to a conversation. However, when you load up a tweet, Instagram or Facebook post you actually lower your engagement.
Combat This By:
Doing your research! Find out what the standards are for hashtags per platform and update your social media practices. You should also create a custom, unique-to-you hashtag to help you track engagement with your brand – especially if you are running a specific campaign. Just be sure to check to see how or if that hashtag is being used on each social media platform.
Worried about falling for social media fool’s gold? Reach out to our team of specialists who will create real engagement with your real followers.
