In the modern era, businesses have to use social media. At least every industry has active social media users, communicating about content and products on the various platforms. Engaging on these sites can be rewarding and lead to business growth, customer loyalty, and profit.
It’s important to work smart and not hard if you plan to market your business using social media. Without the proper tips, most businesses end up making poor decisions when implementing social media marketing tactics. So here are five general social media mistakes, and ways to avoid and fix them.
There are a lot of social media sites to utilize, and you might be tempted to think that the best strategy is to use each one hoping that you’ll be more likely to find your customers than you would if you stuck to just using a few platforms. The reverse is actually the case. It’s important to not forget the social aspect of social media. If you plan to use a site, you have to be engaged and post regularly. You can’t expect people to want to know about your products or services if you’re not engaging – and an account with few postings or poor content is worse than having no account at all.
Instead of trying please everyone, conduct some research on your customer base and learn which platforms they are most likely to use. Why would you spend a lot of time on Snapchat or Pinterest if only a few of your customers are there? Pick two, or at most three, of the sites that you think will yield you the highest returns. Get rid of any other accounts you have and place all your focus in to building a foundation of followers on the sites you have chosen.
One of the most common mistakes companies make on social media is forgetting that sites like Facebook and Twitter are first and foremost meant to be social. The algorithms used by Facebook and Twitter mean that not everybody will see the content you post. Posting inconsistently could result in the decrease of people who view your content and may cause your follower base to decrease as well.
The most efficient way to keep your social media posting consistent is to create a posting schedule and stick closely to it. You can use community events like Throwback Thursday and structure your postings around them to decide what to share and when to share it. Using a social media management tool can help you do all of your scheduling at once so that you don’t have to interrupt your day to post content.
Social media is meant to be fun. Nobody follows a company on Facebook or Pinterest to be spammed with an endless stream of sales pitches and offers – yet a lot of businesses fall into this trap and make the mistake of trying to sell before socializing. Your social media followers will quickly become exhausted of being hammered with aggressive marketing material.
The 80/20 rule is simple to follow. The rule states that around 80% of the content you post should be informative and entertaining with no direct marketing pitch. For the other 20% of content, businesses should use direct marketing tactics like calls to action. In other words, four out of every five things you share on social media should be posted with the idea that they will be interesting and relevant to your follower’s wants and needs – without any agenda on your part other than to keep your name in their mind.
The people who follow you on social media want to interact with you. If they had no interest in you or your company, they wouldn’t even read your content to begin with. However, some businesses make the mistake of thinking that they don’t need to engage with their audience or post content of their own. The result is a disengaged following of people who feel disconnected with your brand.
One of the best things about using social media to market your business is that it gives you the chance to transform your customers into brand ambassadors. You can’t do that if you don’t incentivize them to talk about you and your products. The answer is to follow influencers in your niche or industry and share their content when it’s relevant to your followers. It’s also a good idea to treat your social media accounts as part of your customer service department. When your followers have inquiries about products, services, or content, you should be there to engage, reply, and give feedback. Even the people who don’t comment will see that you think and care about your customers. This is the best way to build customer loyalty.
When it comes to marketing on social media, it’s not enough to post content and look at the number of likes to signify that a campaign is working. If you do that, there’s a good chance that a majority of your content is simply not engaging your customers – and if you keep posting the same content over and over again, they may end up leaving.
When you share content, boost a post, or create an ad on social media, you get a load of information about how customers see and engage with what you post. For your campaigns to be effective, you must use that information to help guide your social media policy going forward. For example, if you notice that the videos you create and share on social media get twice as much engagement as other forms of content, it’s probably best to reallocate funds from your budget so you can produce and host more video content. You should also be split testing your campaigns to make sure that they are working the way you want them to. Doing these two things will grow your follower base and business in no time.
These five mistakes pop up every day in the digital marketing world. With the tips provided here, you can adjust your social media campaigns and acquire the engagement and revenue you dream of.