Are you using automated social posting with your business accounts? If so, you may be making some common mistakes that can hurt your brand.

There are right and wrong ways to use automated social posting. And while you may be using the right methods, there’s always room for improvement.

Check out these 12 mistakes many brands make with automated social posting and see if you can make your efforts even better.

1. Not optimizing your social media profiles

Before you start posting to your social media profiles, you need to make sure you’ve optimized them. This includes adding a profile picture, cover photo, and bio, and making sure all your contact information is up to date.

If you don’t take the time to optimize your social media profiles, your posts won’t be as effective. This is because people will be less likely to follow you, engage with your content, or click on your links.

2. Not having a social media strategy

If you want to see success with your social media marketing, you need a strategy. This should outline your goals and how you plan to achieve them.

Using social media automation without a strategy is like going on a road trip without a map – especially in the fast-moving world of digital marketing, where structure and planning are everything.

 You might get there eventually, but you’ll waste a lot of time and resources along the way.

Before you start automating your social media posts, take the time to create a strategy. This will help you define your goals and give you a roadmap to follow.

3. Not knowing your audience

The key to great social media marketing is knowing your audience and creating content that speaks to them.

If you’re not sure who your target audience is, take a look at your current followers on social media, and see what they have in common. You can also use the analytics tools on most social media platforms to get a better idea of who is engaging with your content.

Once you know who your audience is, you can create content that is relevant and interesting to them. This will help you grow your following and increase engagement on your posts.

4. Not tracking your social media performance

If you’re not tracking your social media performance, you won’t know if your automated posts are working or not.

You should be tracking things like:

• Post reach and engagement

• Traffic to your website from social media

• Leads and sales generated from social media

If you’re not tracking these important metrics, you could be wasting a lot of time and money on your social media marketing.

5. Not having a content calendar

A content calendar is essential for any brand that wants to take a strategic approach to social media marketing.

It helps you plan out your content in advance, so you’re not scrambling to come up with new ideas on the fly. This is especially important if you’re using automated posting, as you’ll need to have a steady stream of content ready to go.

Your content calendar should include a mix of different types of posts, like promotional content, user-generated content, and industry news. It should also include a mix of different topics and themes that are relevant to your target audience.

Pro tip: Use a social media management tool like Hootsuite to plan and schedule your content in advance. This will save you time and help you stay organized. Even a HubSpot discount whether it’s a standard 10 % off annual plans or deeper savings through startup, nonprofit, or negotiated deals, can boost your content strategy ROI with minimal effort.

6. Only posting promotional content

If you’re only using your social media platforms to post promotional content, you’re not going to get much engagement from your followers. Users want to see a mix of content from your brand, and they don’t want to feel like they’re being sold to all the time.

Automated social posting tools allow you to schedule a variety of different types of content, so take advantage of that. In addition to your promotional content, you should also be sharing blog posts, articles, videos, images and more.

. You can also use your automated social posting tool to share user-generated content. For brands focusing on Instagram as a key sales channel, using an Instagram CRM can help automate replies, organize leads, and maximize user engagement. This is a great way to show your followers that you appreciate them and that you’re paying attention to what they’re saying about your brand. Brands comparing platforms, like those exploring Shopify alternatives, can stand out by focusing on authentic, engaging content rather than constant promotion.

Another smart way to break away from constant self-promotion is to spotlight your most loyal customers. Tools like ReferralCandy help you run automated referral programs that turn happy customers into brand advocates—letting your fans do the selling for you.

7. Not engaging with your audience

The ability to schedule posts in advance is one of the biggest benefits of social media automation. But it also means that you might not be on your social media platforms as often as you should be.

One of the most important things you can do on social media is engage with your audience. This means responding to comments, answering questions, and acknowledging mentions.

If you’re not actively monitoring your accounts, you could be missing out on valuable opportunities to connect with your audience and build relationships with potential customers.

8. Not leveraging user-generated content

User-generated content (UGC) is a goldmine for brands. It’s authentic, it’s free, and it’s incredibly effective at increasing trust and engagement.

But UGC can also be a lot of work to find, curate, and share manually. That’s where automation comes in.

Social media automation tools like Later and TINT make it easy to find and share UGC across your social channels. Plus, you can use automated posting to schedule your UGC in advance and make sure it gets the visibility it deserves.

Just be sure to tag the original creator in your post and give them credit for their content.

9. Not proofreading your posts

It’s always important to proofread your social media posts before you publish them. But when you’re automating your posts, it’s even more important to make sure your posts are error-free.

The last thing you want is for a typo or grammatical error to go viral. That can be a costly mistake.

Use a tool like Grammarly to check your posts for spelling, grammar, and punctuation errors.
For visual posts or image-heavy updates, using a screenshot editor can help annotate and highlight key elements before sharing. You can also have someone on your team review your posts before you schedule them.You can also have someone on your team review your posts before you schedule them.

10. Overloading your followers with posts

There’s a fine line between posting too much and not enough on social media. But when you automate your social media posts, it’s easy to fall into the trap of overloading your followers with too much content.

Posting too frequently on social media can lead to you losing followers, which is the last thing you want. It can also lead to your posts getting buried, which can hurt your engagement and reach.

To avoid overloading your followers with posts, make sure you’re using the right posting frequency for each platform. You should also be sure to vary the types of content you’re posting.

11. Not following the 80/20 rule

The 80/20 rule is a social media marketing rule of thumb that suggests 80% of your content should be entertaining, educational or informative, while only 20% should be promotional.

When you’re automating your social media posting, it can be easy to fall into the trap of only scheduling promotional content. After all, it’s the easiest to automate!

But if you’re not careful, you can end up coming across as spammy and your followers will quickly lose interest in your content.

Make sure you’re mixing up your content and following the 80/20 rule. This will help you keep your audience engaged and build a loyal following.

12. Not repurposing your content

One of the best things about automating your social media marketing is that you can use the same content in multiple ways and on multiple platforms.

For example, you might share a blog post on Facebook and then turn it into an infographic to share on Instagram. You can then use the data from the blog post to create a series of tweets. To streamline this process, you can use tools like Venngage’s Timeline Generator to repurpose content visually for multiple platforms.

Repurposing your content is a great way to get the most out of your social media marketing. Plus, it can save you a lot of time, especially if done using AI content repurposing tools.

Conclusion

Automated social posting can be a great tool to help your brand save time, but it’s important to use it correctly. By avoiding these 12 common mistakes, you can ensure your social posts are well-received by your audience.