Social media marketing does not come without its difficulties. Even though we are getting increasingly skilled at the art of marketing via online social media sites, there are always pitfalls that many people seem to fall into.
But why is this the case?
The short answer is that the majority of people don’t have a plan going in. They just try to wing it and use their intuition to become online sensations. The problem with this is that many of the techniques that you think would be beneficial for your social media success isn’t always what is best for you. A lot of what actually works is counter-intuitive because people don’t fully understand the structure and ‘rules’ of the social media sphere.
We are going to let you in on the top 5 social media marketing mistakes to avoid.
Going after numbers only
We all want social media pages that are brimming with followers. When we see some of the really successful social media pages getting 25k+ likes for their posts, we want to recreate that for ourselves. However, these likes and comments are ultimately only for show if the audience is not really suited to your business.
It is easier than you would think to get followers on your social media channels. If you are willing to make an investment into some promoted posts on sites like Facebook, you can get your numbers to grow steadily. Understandably, there is a temptation to set the audience parameters very wide in order to increase your chances of getting a lot of people to see your page. However, this is going to dilute the strength of your audience and will be wasted money in the long run.
This is because if your followers are primarily comprised of your target audience, you are going to get more relevant engagement on your social media page.
1. No Brand Personality
This one seems to be a serious problem in the online sphere. We are not really sure why many business owners seem to think that this is not important, but they do.
Usually, there are two main reasons for this issue. Firstly, the business owner just tries to ‘wing it’ (once again) and puts no thought into what they want their brand to sound like online. The second reason is that there are several people who are trying to run the social media pages and they are each trying to instil a different personality into the brand. The result in this case is a diluted personality that changes from post to post.
People want to feel like the Facebook page (or any social media page) of a business is like a person. If you share interesting content and have some personality to your posts, people will be much more inclined to read what you have to say. Companies that go the “Sell! Sell! Sell!” route are often cursed with uninterested followers.
2. Spamming
Spamming your fan base doesn’t always mean ‘a series of sales-y posts.’ Although that kind of posting is definitely something to be avoided, simply the volume of posting itself can be an issue, regardless of the content.
If you are posting an excessive amount (even with good content,) it ends up being information overload for your customers and they just tune out.
Check out our blog on the basics of developing a social media strategy to see what posting schedules are recommended for each social media platform. (https://www.adimpact.com.au/blog/articles/developing-your-own-social-media-strategy/),
3. Not Engaging With Customers
Capitalise on the fact that you can interact with customers in an instantaneous way via social media. There is a plethora of social media nightmares that are well documented on the web for a variety of reasons. Some are just poor ideas, but the majority of them come down to poor interaction with customers.
Unfortunately, the majority of the times that people are vocal about a brand on social media are when there is some discrepancy they want to voice. If you can be the bigger person in social media discrepancies, people will respect your business more.
In addition to this, try to interact with customers positively in scenarios outside of discrepancies too. Hosting competitions and replying to comments make people feel like they are being heard, which only increases brand trust.
4. Not Using Images
If you think that you are going to get people’s attention with text alone, you might be in for a surprise. According to a 2014 twitter blog, a tweet with an image has 35% higher chance of being retweeted as those without an image.
People scroll through social media pages very quickly and wait for something to jump out at them. Although it isn’t crucial, it will only increase your chances of being seen.
The good news for business owners is that all of the things on this list are easily avoidable. If you are thinking about creating a social media strategy, or are just trying to critically assess your existing one, make sure to see where you stand on these tips.
