When I think about social media, I start to sound a lot like somebody’s cranky grandma.

Back when I was starting out Armenia WhatsApp Number List in marketing. Thus, we didn’t have all this Twitter or LinkedIn or Facebook. If you wanted to run an ad, you bought a classified. In the newspaper! Which people had to pay for!

Did I mention we had to walk to Armenia WhatsApp Number List school in the snow. Thus, uphill both directions, even in May?

The internet, and the free social platforms that have been developed for it, have given us genuinely amazing tools to connect with other humans. Those tools have accomplished a lot of good … as well as some harm.

Today, social platforms are critical to content marketing and digital business.

So if social media is so important, how come so many small digital businesses are doing it so wrong?

It’s one thing if your local bank is a bit … unsophisticated in its use of social media. They’re supposed to be slow to change.

But digital businesses like yours and mine? We should be good at this. Let’s look at some of the things that hold us back.

Bad habit #1: Spreading yourself too thin

It can be depressing to realize how many different social platforms are out there. And for every one, large or small, someone will tell you that you simply have to be there.

I’m telling you that you do not simply have to be there.

You should probably have a presence on the social platform that matters the most to the audience you serve. But it makes no sense to try to have a viable, meaningful presence on every platform you think might have some customers.

If you need someone’s permission, I’ll give you mine. You don’t have to be on every “important” social platform. You probably shouldn’t be.

Focus on one or two. Show up, pay attention. Make fewer, better connections.

Bad habit #2: Consistently ignoring context

Social scheduling tools are fantastic. The Copyblogger team certainly benefits from them. But schedulers can also create very weird juxtapositions.

Your Twitter feed might be blowing up with a serious or even tragic event … and there are your scheduled posts, blathering on about your launch.

We all miss things sometimes. And most people understand that social media schedulers can make us a little tone-deaf … temporarily.

But it’s hard to care about a social media presence that has clearly been put on permanent “set and forget” mode.

When I see a small digital business — particularly one that revolves around one individual person — who never seems to notice what’s going on in politics, sports, current movies, hit TV shows, or anything else … it’s hard to feel like there’s any connection happening there.