Last Updated: May 17, 2025
Social media marketing is a great digital marketing tactic to grow your brand online. But, there are some simple social media marketing mistakes that you can avoid in order to take full advantage of what social media platforms can offer.
Social Media Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them
Not Having a Plan in Place
Having a plan in place is always a good idea for any marketing strategy. This helps with aspects such as:
- Setting the brand tone
- Creating a uniform look for the brand’s social media presence
- Understanding the target audience and their behavior
With a plan in place, brands will be able to create a more efficient social media presence. This will help the brand’s social media pages gain better engagement.
Read Also: Top Benefits of Social Media Marketing for a Small Business
Inconsistent branding
Your social media profiles are extensions of your brand, so inconsistency in visuals, tone of voice, or messaging across platforms can confuse your audience and weaken brand recognition. For example, if your Instagram has a playful, colorful tone but your LinkedIn sounds overly formal and dry, it may create mixed signals. Maintaining consistent logos, color schemes, messaging, and brand voice across all platforms reinforces your identity and helps build trust and familiarity with your audience.
Having Too Much Content on Social Media Creatives
As per Facebook’s algorithm, an image that consists of more than 20% content/text will see a decline in organic reach. That’s why, the more the content, the lesser Facebook’s algorithm will push the posts.
In a report by Statistica, “As of January 2019, some 61 percent of users in North America accessed social media via mobile while the global mobile social penetration rate was 42 percent.”
With over half of the US population using a mobile phone for social media, brands need to keep in mind that a decent number of followers are likely seeing their posts via a smartphone. That means that the more the text, the smaller it will look on a phone, hence increasing the chance of a potential customer scrolling past it without reading.
In order to check if a social media image falls under Facebook’s best practices when it comes to the amount of content on it, brands used to refer to Facebook’s Text Overlay Tool. But, unfortunately, Facebook (now known as Meta) has discontinued this service.
Focusing Too Much on the Brand and not the Industry
One of the key reasons why people follow a brand on social media is because of the content around the industry they are in rather than specific content about their brand. Here is an example of a brand that received love on social media because of their posts:
Amul is a well known brand of butter in India. But, another reason why people love the brand is because of the witty social media posts that the brand posts where they take a trending topic in India and giving it a “buttery” twist to it. Many people follow their social media profiles not because they want updates about the brand, but because they love these posts from their social media team.
Not Defining the Target Audience Beforehand
Before creating social media content, it is important to have an understanding of who falls under the target audience umbrella. By understanding the target audience, brands will have a user persona in place, which can be used to understand customer behavior. Having this template ready before creating social media content will go a long way in creating a successful social media strategy.
Not optimizing for mobile
With the majority of users browsing social media on their phones, mobile optimization is non-negotiable. This means using mobile-friendly formats like vertical videos, easy-to-read captions, and responsive landing pages for any linked content. Avoiding large blocks of text, ensuring quick load times, and using clear CTAs also enhance the mobile experience. If your content isn’t optimized for mobile, you risk losing engagement and frustrating users who quickly move on to more accessible content.
Posting Content That is Irrelevant
Posting irrelevant content is a big no – no. That’s because, for a successful social media strategy, quality always outperforms quantity. Continuously posting irrelevant content can lead to:
- Lower engagement rate
- Reduction in followers
- Potentially hurting sentiments of the target audience (depending on the type of post)
Buying Social Media Followers from Third Party Vendors
Buying 1000 followers from third-parties for $5 can be tempting. But, this is of no use to brands. That’s because it is very likely that these accounts are fake. Because of these, these accounts will never engage with the brand’s content. For all we know, they will probably never see the social media posts in the first place since the accounts do not belong to a person.
Not to mention, brands can not choose the subset of followers – they can only choose the country the followers belong to. For example, let’s suppose a luxury fashion brand buys 1000 Instagram followers from a third party. The third-party will only provide an option of the location these accounts belong to, nothing else. But, not everyone in a country will fall under the target audience of a luxury brand. There’s no point in having 1000 more followers if the followers can never afford to buy the product the brand is selling.
Using Irrelevant Hashtags in Captions
While using broad hashtags on Twitter and Instagram can help improve reach, not all of them may be relevant. For long term benefits, aim for broad hashtags that are relevant to the brand. This will help with things like:
- Reaching more people who fall under the target audience definition
- Increase in social media engagement
- Better brand awareness
- Long term conversion options
Ignoring Customer Feedback
Social media provides a valuable opportunity for businesses to listen to and engage with their customers. Ignoring feedback or failing to respond to customer inquiries or complaints can damage your reputation and lead to a loss of trust.
Posting Too Much or Too Little
Finding the right balance of how often to post on social media can be tricky. Posting too frequently can overwhelm your audience and lead to them tuning you out, while posting too infrequently can make your brand seem inactive or irrelevant. It’s important to find the right frequency that works for your brand and audience.
Focusing on Self-Promotion
Constantly posting sales-driven content can come across as pushy and self-serving, which often leads to audience disengagement or unfollows. Social media is a space for building relationships, not just selling. Instead of focusing solely on promotions, aim for a mix of content that entertains, educates, and informs—like tips, industry news, behind-the-scenes looks, or user-generated content. This creates value for your followers and makes them more likely to support your brand when it’s time to buy.
Ignoring Platform-Specific Best Practices
Each social media platform has its own unique features and best practices. Ignoring these can lead to poor engagement and ineffective content. Make sure to research and understand the best practices for each platform you use.
Failing to Track and Analyze Results
Many brands make the mistake of posting content without reviewing how it performs. Social media platforms offer valuable insights—like engagement rates, reach, click-throughs, and follower growth—that reveal what your audience likes and how they behave. By ignoring these metrics, you miss the chance to refine your strategy and double down on what’s working. Regularly analyzing data allows you to make informed decisions, optimize content types, and schedule posts at the best times for maximum impact.
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