7 mistakes that are killing your social media growth!
Avoid these mistakes and take your content creation to the next level!
“I have been trying for so long, but nothing seems to be working out for me. I don’t think social media is my game.” — a friend of mine who was posting and engaging every single day because some thought leader on LinkedIn said so.
The problem with half-baked information is it deludes people into believing they are going to have the same trajectory as their “guru”. What they end up doing is consistently posting loosely-bind information with no substance and/or engaging with random people instead of their target audience.
#1 - Adding external links
The reach of most of your posts with external links gets dampened and might even impact the performance of your next posts.
Every platform wants you hooked on it for as long as possible. By adding an external link, you make your audience move out of the platform, which is an act of war against the algorithm haha. Platforms are like Louis from Suits:
If you want to promote a link, add it to your bio and ask your followers to check it out there. It has multifold benefits — increases your profile visits and only interested people will go through the hassle to visit your link.
#2 - Not staying consistent
Actively creating content helps you build a good recall among your followers. The more frequently your posts pop up on the feed, the higher the chances of your audience engaging with you. A second-order effect of this is a higher number of posts increases profile visits, which in turn, brings more followers.
If staying consistent is difficult because of your other commitments, prioritize creating content in batches and schedule it ahead of the week.
The important aspect here is to consistently create content that is relevant to your audience and engage with creators who have a similar set of audiences.
#3 - Not curating your feed
The quality of content you consume directly impacts the quality of content you create. Curating a well-thought-of feed can help you come up with more refined ideas and understand the nuances of your niche better. Instead of following random movie stars or distant relatives, follow industry leaders and content creators from the same niche and engage with them.
Secondly, at times, the content you engage with pops up on the feed of your followers. Engaging with random and irrelevant content often can leave your audience a little agitated because your actions impact their feed too.
#4 - Not optimizing your profile
“Don’t judge a book by its cover” — but it is in our nature to factor in past experiences and lessons into new observations and make assumptions.
A well-optimized profile can convert visitors into followers and followers into customers. But most people mess up one or the other aspect of it.
Avoid blank profile pictures or a complicated bio
Avoid making your bio all about yourself — explain how you help your audience. Why should they follow you?
Avoid random digits or characters in your username.
Crafting a bio that reflects your values and beliefs can help you create meaningful relationships with your followers. Moreover, adding the right keywords make your profile discoverable/rank better in the search results. HRs look up “Software Developer” and not “someone who writes badass code”.
#5 - Not looking at your analytics
Understanding the audience is the key to any content creator’s distribution growth. Your analytics is more than just follower growth or the number of impressions made. Check which posts get you higher link clicks (conversions), likes and comments (engagement ratio), profile visits (follower growth), and performance based on time, region, etc
Gain insights into what's working and make informed decisions. It can get overwhelming at times so it is imperative that you learn to read your data and quickly navigate to the metrics that matter to you. Also, while you learn audience behavior through data, don’t forget to stay authentic.
#6 - Not formatting the content right
Try to keep your content as much readable/viewable as possible.
If you are a text-based creator, run your blogs and stories with tools like Grammarly and eliminate unnecessary spelling and grammatical mistakes. Avoid using complex words or stretching statements with too many conjunctions.
If you create video-based content, pay as much attention to the audio quality as you do to the video. Spend some time on adding captions and avoid adding too many transitions/prompts, unless it is necessary to convey your point.
Improvise as per the platform’s standard content format. Twitter users primarily skim text whereas Youtube is for long-form video content. Adding hashtags helps on Instagram but doesn’t create much difference on Twitter.
#7 - Not engaging with the audience
Lastly, engaging with your audience is crucial for growing your distribution and nurturing relationships. Respond to comments and messages, ask for feedback, and let your community put forward suggestions and opinions.
Build a habit of sharing your stories, goals, failures, progress, etc. in public and hold yourself accountable for it. Let your audience contribute to it.
And it’s a wrap!
Did I miss anything? Or do you want to read about anything else? Let me know in the comments. Looking forward to your feedback and suggestions :)
Until next time, cheers!
~ Kritarth Mittal