Social Media Marketing Mistakes To Avoid.

Almost everyone is now doing social media marketing since social media is where most people are now. When you do your social media marketing right, you will build your brand online and expand your customer base.

In the past decade, small and big businesses have discovered the power of social media in promoting their brands, products, services and in increasing their sales. And, I bet you are among the people who have taken their businesses online. Either you are fully operating your business online or you have a physical shop but also operating online.

Having a Facebook page or an Instagram account for your business is just not enough. Posting your products or telling your customers about your services is probably your main aim. However, there is a lot more you need to do to succeed in that space other than just being in that space.

Social media marketing can be a blessing to your business if you do it right. Nonetheless, you will not always do things right, you have to make mistakes. On the other hand, learning about the mistakes you might be making and learning from them is what is important.

You will make mistakes but you cannot afford to keep making some of these mistakes. They will cost you your following – lose customers or prospective customers and your business generally. So, you need to take care of your social media especially if you depend on social media for marketing.

Not Having a Social Media Marketing Strategy.

If you want to succeed in social media marketing, you cannot just start marketing your business without a plan. You need to have a plan for your strategy that will give you direction and keep you going. In your strategy, define your goals, come up with your target audience, a team, and a time frame for your goals.

After knowing what you want to achieve through social media, decide the type of content you need – images, videos, etc. 

Wanting to be in all platforms.

You might be thinking that being in all social media platforms will increase the chances of your business succeeding in social media.

In you have a strategy, you definitely came up with a target audience. Now, this is going to help you come up with the right platforms to use. Know where your target audience is and use those platforms.

If your target audience is on Instagram and Facebook, use those 2 platforms. This will also make managing your social media easier compared to managing 5 platforms.

Not making a commitment to your social media.

Having pages on social media is not all, you have to put in the work and be committed to your social media. And anyway, the Facebook page or Instagram account will not run on its own

Don’t just post when you feel like without having a plan or a content schedule. You need to be committed to consistency. Having a content plan and schedule will help you do that.

All you do is promote yourself.

Don’t be too loud about your brand. In short, don’t over-promote yourself, your products, or your services.

Avoid having too many adverts on your social media pages as this pushes your followers and potential customers away.

Post content that adds values to your followers and which will encourage engagement from your followers and social interaction.  Have images that show your brand culture, your work culture, blog posts, testimonials, or reshares of your posts by your followers.

Not engaging and interacting with followers.

Just as your brand is important so are your followers. With that in mind, you need to focus on your followers too just as you focus on promoting your products and services.

Give attention to your followers and potential customers by engaging and interacting with them. Listen to your followers and the feedback they give you and show them that they matter. Reply to comments and respond to concerns and follow up.

Not having a variation in content & Posting just for the sake of posting.

When you keep posting the same content, you will not engage your audience/followers.

Posting the same type of content will bore your followers and will not engage them especially if the content is just promotional.

Post an image today and post a video tomorrow, or a link to a blog post of interest to your followers, the variation will promote engagement.

Also, don’t just post on your pages for the sake of posting just because it’s Wednesday and you are supposed to post that day.

Fake following/ buying followers.

This here is a social media marketing sin that some businesses commit.

Most businesses do not have audience engagement because they have no ‘real’ people following them. The giveaways you make will only attract fans for the items you are giving away but not for your products or services.

You need real followers who will be customers, buy your products, and support you. Be patient and take your time to build a strong social media presence for your business.

By having content that meets the needs of your audience and adds value to them, you will build your presence and grow your following.

Poorly dealing with negative social media feedback.

Engagement from followers can come in the form of positive feedback or negative feedback you will not like.

When you come across a negative comment from a follower, don’t go ignoring the comments or deleting them.

Others go to the extent of being rude and disrespectful to followers and this leaves a more negative impact on your brand than the negative comment. Avoid giving excuses and instead, focus on making the necessary changes and get back or follow up with the follower who gave the feedback.

Poor Online customer service.

The same way customer service is important in a physical store, it is also important on social media.

Issues raised by followers and customers need to be addressed as soon as possible. Therefore, make sure you have a good social media team to attend to your followers and customers on your platforms.

Have brand ambassadors and influencers who can help answer questions about your products and services. They can do this as they promote and motivate people to buy your products.

Not tracking your progress.

To know if you are making progress and reaching your target audience, you need to track your progress.

To know how much engagement you are having on your social media use the performance metrics provided by the platforms you are using or out-source analytics tools.

Make use of google analytics to see how many likes, shares you are getting or the audience you are reaching- if the audience you are reaching can become leads to your sales. You can check if your sales increased since your social media marketing took off.

The analysis will also help you know the type of content or posts receiving more engagement and the ones that are not. This will eventually help you recognize the possible changes you need to make to increase engagement. Especially if your engagement has reduced or increased.

Conclusion.

In this era of social media, social media marketing is key in any business whose target audience is present on social media. However, you have to do it right so as to have the impact you want social media marketing to have.

The above mistakes among other mistakes not mentioned can affect the success of your social media marketing, negatively. Therefore, be aware of these mistakes and avoid making them if you want your business to succeed in social media marketing.