110. The Most Common Social Media Mistakes by Companies (And What to Do Instead)

Speaker A: Welcome to the Go Get Great podcast, the perfect spot for aspiring entrepreneurs and ambitious small business owners. I'm Brittany, your host, an online marketing strategist and mom of five.

Speaker B: Here you'll discover how to start or

Speaker A: scale your small business with practical marketing and business strategies that even the busiest entrepreneurs can implement. But we don't just stop at business insight because we know that what you do when you're not wearing your entrepreneur hat is just as important to the success of your business. As a fellow mom, I understand the importance of having a space for real talk where we share the relatable, messy moments of balancing motherhood and a business. So let's dive in and start your journey from good to great.

Speaker B: If there is one thing that I would like to never see on social media again, it's got to be holiday messages. This is one thing that I really, really am adamant about with my clients. And every time I see it on social media, it just makes me cringe. It's brutal. And I mean, truthfully speaking, doing this is actually hurting your marketing. So hear me out before we kind of dive into why I would like to see people stop doing this. I really think that it's important to clarify what it is. Many mean holiday messages. So you know, you know, it's Christmas or it's Easter, and you pop into Canva and you pick a template and it's like, happy Easter, Merry Christmas. Don't do it. I'm begging you. I'm begging you. You've gotta stop posting this. There's a few reasons why I would love to kill the Canva holiday message. Um, but, uh, the biggest one is that it's so overdone. Everyone sees it, everyone posts it, but no one's engaging with it. And that's why I want business owners to stop doing this, because it's actually hurting your marketing. Because when you have your followers, who are people who are supposed to want to engage with your content, not engage with your content, what it does is signal to the algorithm, oh, this person's not interested in what X business has to say. I'm going to stop putting their content in their feed now. Having them scroll past one holiday message of yours that they're not interacting with may not have this happen. But if they've also skipped a couple other posts of yours recently, big, big problem. We want our followers to see our content. Because, as I've talked about at length, the goal is to get people who follow you on social media to get onto your email list. Well, they are never going to get onto your email list if they stop seeing your content because they're going to forget about you. And uh, as a reminder, Instagram only shows about the top 50 profiles, the top most engaged with profiles. 50 profiles in your Instagram feed. So you need to make sure that you're posting quality content over quantity content so that your content is staying in people's feeds and these messages are just not exciting enough for them to want to interact with it. Now, I'm not saying that you shouldn't wish people a Merry Christmas or a Happy Easter, but if you're going to do it, I want you to do one of these two things instead. Option number one, instead of creating a post that lives in your feed forever and your feed should just be for business related content, so it shouldn't be there at all. Post it in your stories instead. Make a story template instead of a post template. There's lots of those on Canva too. Put it up in your stories. It'll disappear after 24 hours. If people don't want to see it. Well, it's only one story, so chances are them looking at it even to swipe to the next story, they're still seeing it. They're still getting that message from you, but it's not impacting your algorithm because Instagram is not going to stop showing your stories to someone because that's based on who posts the story recently, based on who you follow. So you have a more allowance for them not interacting and engaging with it when it's a story instead of a post.

Speaker C: Okay.

Speaker B: Or option number two, if you're not super active in your stories, which at this point in the marketing landscape I almost feel is not an option. Um, but your marketing message needs to be personal. You want to wish someone Merry Christmas? Cool. It needs to at least be a photo of your family at bare minimum, or your business team if you're not like a solopreneur. But it's got to have some sort of personal connection to it to make people stop and look and read and engage. Better yet, make it a video. Get your family to say Merry Christmas in a five second reel. Or, um, or post a, uh, Merry Christmas message, uh, where you're wishing everyone Merry Christmas and you know, talking about what the holidays mean to you or something in and along those lines. But if there is not a personal connection, meaning your, uh, face, your voice, something in the post, don't do it. It is not worth potentially risking losing that interaction with your followers to make the post worthwhile.

Speaker A: No one is going to realize you know what?

Speaker B: Hey, Brie didn't wish me Merry Christmas, so I'm gonna unfollow her. No one's paying that much attention. But they are seeing a, uh, bazillion different Merry Christmas messages from all of

Speaker A: the people that they follow, and they're

Speaker B: not gonna engage with all of them unless you give them a, uh, personal reason to do it. So that's my big thing for 2026. Actually, it was my big thing for 2025, too. I just never got around to talking about it on my podcast because I wasn't podcasting last year. But that's something that I've been really, really pushing my clients to stop doing. Because when I was posting it for my clients, even back in, like, 2024, the engagement weight was really low. It's not worth it, but I'll get them. Um, my clients used to say, but, Brittany, we need to share our holiday hours. I hear you. I really do that. Yes, you should share your holiday hours with your people. Update your biz, your Google business profile. People are going to check there for hours.

Speaker A: If your hours are not updated there,

Speaker B: they're going to check your social media. And if it's not posted on social media, they're going to call you.

Speaker A: And obviously, if you're not open, you're not going to answer.

Speaker B: So that's going to give them their answer. But I can understand why you wouldn't want people to have to do that. But if you are open, people may not be willing to do that. So, yes, it is still good to share that information with people on social media, but that does not mean that it needs to be a post. I'm still adamant. We don't need those posts. Guys, if you're doing a personal post, okay, mention it in the caption. I will give you that. Captions are forgiving. But if you want to share your holiday hours, make it a story. But, Brittany, it's a long weekend. It's three days. That's fine. Schedule the story so that it's live for all three days. You can do that and you don't even have to be online. But then the story disappears when the holiday weekend is over and your hours are back to normal and it's not hurting your engagement. It's not. It's not taking up space in your feed. That is the correct way to do it. Story content, personal connection. Ditch the feed.

Speaker A: Posts, guys.

Speaker B: Not only is it going to make it.

Speaker A: Well, if you're creating story content, it's

Speaker B: not necessarily easier for you, but it's just going to be so much better. We're focusing on quality and user friendliness over engagement. People are also more likely to see your stories than they probably are your feed posts anyway, because when I'm on Instagram, I might scroll my feed for a couple minutes, but nine times out of 10, I want to see what people are up to behind the scenes, and I get that information from the stories. And most people are more active in story content than they are in your feed posts. Feed posts are great for converting existing followers, and you can do this in your stories too, but converting existing followers into customers and clients and it's also great if you're creating real content to help you get new followers, but it's not good at helping tell people what your holiday hours are because you're just hurting. As we've already established, you're hurting your engagement, which may mean that people stop seeing your content, which is not what we want. It's not what we want. And truthfully speaking, feeds, especially around the holidays, not only are they bombarded with all of the same messaging that no one wants to keep seeing, but there's a lot of ads in your feed because people use story ads less than they use feed ads. So you're more likely to have people see your stuff when it's in the stories. So if I haven't convinced you at this point that this is the way to go, I'm probably not going to. So I'm going to stop talking now. But if you're looking for more insight and tips and tricks and things like that, make sure you're following the Go Get Great podcast on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, or you're on my email list so that you know when I drop new episodes.

Speaker A: Um, and you can hang out on

Speaker B: socials if you want, and I share information there as well. But the marketing landscape is changing and your business needs to keep up. And this is one of the really easy but really big things that you can do to help keep your business relevant on social media in 2026. So thank you guys for listening if you made it this far in the episode and make sure you stick around for all the other marketing insight that I will be sharing this year. See you in the next episode.

Speaker A: Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode of Go Get Great. I hope that you found some inspiration and practical tips to help help you take your life and business from good to great. If you enjoyed today's episode, please make sure to leave a review and subscribe so you never miss an episode. We've got so much more valuable content and amazing guests coming your way. And don't forget to follow us on social media for marketing tips and a whole lot of relatable mom content. You can find us on Instagram @, uh, BrittanyMiller Socials and BrittanyNMiller. Uh, and if you're ready to elevate your marketing game, I would love to work with you.

Speaker B: Whether you need help with social media

Speaker A: strategy, email marketing, or growing a podcast of your own, Brittany Miller Socials is here to support you every step of the way. Visit my website at www.BrittanyMillerSoCials.ca to learn more about how we can work together. Thanks again for listening. Until next time. Keep going, keep growing and go get.

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