You wouldn’t expect to see your favorite brand or industry icon posting sloppy, unpolished, or unprofessional content any more than you would expect it from the President of the United States.
The mistakes that you don’t see have likely helped propel your favorite brands and personalities to their current positions as leaders. Error-free content that’s easy and enjoyable to read is a huge part of the customer experience, and it takes work to perfect.
While you may not have a full team of strategists, writers, and editors, you can make your content look more polished and thought-out by avoiding these common content marketing mistakes.
1. The wrong message on the wrong channel
Your content distribution plan may include a number of social media channels, but there are different standards and audiences for each. At the very least, you should tweak your message and copy for each channel.
Let’s say you’re a cosmetics company launching a new anti-wrinkle cream. Your consumer-facing Facebook message might read something like, “Five women. Five days. Real results. See what real women had to say about our product.” This wouldn’t work on LinkedIn, where your audience is industry peers and potential recruits. Instead, you’d want to focus on the novelty of the product — possibly speaking with the product’s creators, or including a quote from someone at your company.
Yet all too often, I still see companies taking the copy/paste approach when it comes to cross-channel distribution. In one survey, consumers cited excessive promotional messaging as one of the most annoying things brands do on social media. Be careful about being too sales-y on these channels.
2. Letting buzzwords and jargon slip into your content
I absolutely hate the word “innovation.” It’s incredibly overused, and frankly, it’s a lazy approach to getting your message across. How are you innovative? What makes you different? What’s the story, anyway?
News reporters are trained to translate law enforcement and government lingo into everyday language when writing a story — they’d never be caught dead quoting straight out of a police blotter. In much the same way, you, the writer or content marketer, are tasked with translating jargon from your company’s product managers, engineers, and executives so that it makes sense and matters to the consumer or end-user.
3. Excessive punctuation & hyperbole
Your users on social media are already sick of their crazy uncles who write daily rants using all caps, exaggerations, and excessive exclamation points. Please don’t be that crazy uncle.
Write in a calm, composed tone. Even “adrenaline” brands avoid excessive punctuation and other cheap tactics to get attention (although they do show videos of people jumping off buildings — totally legit.)
If you want to catch your audience’s attention, take the time to write catchy headlines and use high-quality, engaging visuals. Who wants to sound like a used car dealer on the radio? Not you.
4. Jumping the wrong bandwagon
It’s a great idea to keep an eye on what’s trending and be able to quickly react by contributing your own content — when it makes sense.
Trying too hard to “make #this happen” can make you look desperate and out of touch. Say #SaveTheElephants is trending on social media this week. Well, you’re a toy company that just so happens to make elephant-shaped pillows. You should totally jump on this trend, right? Nope. Not unless part of your profits is actually going to save the elephants. Otherwise, this move is tacky. Take the time to fully understand what the trend is about before you jump the bandwagon — otherwise, you could end up like one of these unfortunate companies.
5. Research paper-like writing
When I was in college and I had a 10-page research paper due (which I’d likely waited until the night before to finish), I’d sneakily try to make my sentences longer to reach the minimum. Who didn’t? Well, my professors saw right through it.
And you won’t get any extra points from customers by being too wordy — in fact, you’re more likely to lose their attention. Here’s a great piece from Grammar Girl on writing clearly and concisely. I’m sure my former professors would agree.