Social media can be so controversial.

But these are things I will never support as a social media manager:

1. Virality being a goal

Going viral is not a strategy, and it should never be your goal because even if you did go viral, do you have the strategy in place to help you leverage it? Building a thriving community that is engaged with your content and advocates for your brand is worth so much more than your follower count, always.

2. Winging it over having a social media strategy

Your social media strategy is your roadmap to success, it’s aligned with your brand, builds cohesiveness, strengthens your message and gets you to your business goals. When you’re always winging it, without content pillars and without any cohesiveness, it waters down your message. The random posts that don’t really align with your brand or tell a story can reduce the consistency of your messaging and won’t convert.

3. ChatGPT copy and pasting

Don’t sound like a robot, use your voice, your brand voice because that’s what people will know you for. You don’t have to always sound professional either because if your audience wanted, they’d just pick up a textbook from the library right? Use your personality.

4. Ignoring your current community to chase new followers

You have to nurture your audience because you never know who might convert. They always see your content but just because they aren’t engaging with it, doesn’t mean they aren’t partially convinced to invest. The marketing funnel isn’t dead, use it. And if you don’t know what it is, that’s a post for another day.

5. Being a faceless brand

I feel like I talk about this so much so here’s some quick points:
↳ Your personal brand is EVERYTHING.
↳ It’s how you stand out
↳ It’s how you build trust and credibility
↳ Your audience is craving authenticity and connection

6. Being generic

Every time you create content, think about this one question: what’s in it for your audience? How is your content adding value? Be unfiltered and don’t gate keep – this doesn’t mean giving away all your expertise but be real. This could mean sharing your hot take or unpopular opinion on a topic, a peek into your process or behind-the-scenes. Be relatable.

7. Lazy engagement

This is also a post for another day but I can’t say enough how much difference both inbound and outbound engagement can make to your socials. Social media is a two-way street, you need to be giving what you want back. And I don’t mean just commenting an emoji!

Until the next post,

Farah