Social media in India has become the "in" place to connect with fans/followers and to advertise. But in order to get more and more followers some brands just keep doing things which has negative or no impact on their brand. There are some who are not aware of how things work on Social Media and some make mistakes unknowingly.
Social media can be a boon or a bane it depends the way you handle this medium, the callous mistakes you make can really cost your brand its image, customers etc. Here are some of the most common mistakes that these brands are making on social media, which you can easily avoid:
1. Using social media as scrapbook! (Yogurtbay)
It is very important to keep your audiences informed, but it is important that while you are doing that you keep the content crisp and to the point. Your consumers have a very short attention span, so if you keep filling up paragraphs worth of information they are literally going to hit snooze. But looks like Yogurtbay is competing in an essay competition, cause each and every post shared on their Facebook page is that long.
They might be sharing meaningful information, but they need to cut it down drastically so people read it, like it and share it. Add images, make it more visual treat for your fans. Their posts receive as good as no engagement, because it is so looooong that people just skip it and move on to the next brand on their timeline.
2. Don't be a Terminator (Godrej Group)
Not only do the audiences vary on social media sites, but so does the posting style. It is important to take the time to research how your audiences are communicating on various social networks before jumping the gun. Godrej group on Twitter posts mostly links, and that too two consecutive links. Very confusing about which link to click (if at all I want to click)
I think they are using some social media tool for posting images, and that is converting images into suck links rather attaching the images with the tweet so it receives more engagement. Looks like they did not receive the memo of the Twitter changes! I might have pointed this out hundred times, but here it is again - Please don't act like a robot, personalise as much as you can.
3. Too Pushy! (Cornetto)
This is a case of trying too hard to impress your followers; there is no relevance of Cornetto with the question asked. This post would have made more sense if it was a picnic basket or what's in your grocery bags. The last thing you will be carrying when you're travelling is an ice cream cone; you will be more worried about whether you have packed your passport and other essentials.
Make sure the topic you are tying your brand too, should contain some relevance to your product. The bottom line is nobody likes a product pusher.
4. Spending Burning money on Ads (Fiat India)
With Facebook's organic reach declining; brands have resorted to advertising so it increases the reach of their posts, which sounds like a fair point! But what I don't get it is when brands, instead of spending money wisely just burn it.
Take a look at the above example. First off, that image of New Punto is not at all attractive and god knows why there is lot of space wasted on that creative and objects are so small that I personally would not even stumble upon on this as a potential customer. Can you easily read out what's written on top left corner?
Also, there is no strong call-to-action or descriptions to lure your audiences to click on learn more, you need to earn the clicks you get with some great gate enticing content! With Facebook's rule about 20% text in any image for ad, I understand it's hard to put much text there, but this placeholder where you are expected to put content is left blank.
5. Blindly Ctrl c+v (Airtel)
A lot of times brands follow a similar theme on various social networks, like in the case of Airtel it was their #PhoneQuotes. As you can see very clearly below they have blinded copied the same post from their Facebook page, to Google+. Last time I checked you "+1" Google+ posts and not like! It is okay to copy, but don't do so blindly.
Adhere to the posting style norms and remember the right keywords - Like, Share, Retweet, +1! Proof read every post thoroughly, so you can avoid these bloopers. Important thing here is to focus on what call to action you are asking your audience to focus on.
I am sure you know Social media is an extremely powerful marketing tool for your brand, but it can have serious repercussions to your brands image if keep doing these mistakes.
Saw how angry users were with Flipkart doing blunder with #BigBillionDay? Don't you think it was actually a Big day for Amazon and Snapdeal?