Social media has become one of the top ways people use to connect with friends, family, and coworkers. As such, it’s important to ensure that you stay in control of your social media presence, especially since it plays such an integral role in marketing.
With over 2.934 billion daily users around the globe, Facebook is the largest social network. In addition to having a large user base, it also offers a variety of features that allow brands to interact directly with their customers. But despite its popularity, Facebook isn’t without its flaws. Many marketers struggle to manage the platform effectively, leading to missed opportunities and wasted resources.
Twitter, by comparison, has 200 million daily users, however, much of the content posted to Twitter is influential, shaping many things about culture, politics, and other world issues around the globe.
Instagram has around 2 billion active daily users, and LinkedIn has 822 million users, and although it has not been reported whether they are daily or monthly, that’s no small potato.
As a marketer, you want your brand to stand out from the crowd. That means ensuring that you’re taking full advantage of every aspect of the platform. By avoiding these mistakes, you will be able to increase organic reach and boost conversions.
You Tend to Focus on Quantity Over Quality
Learn from our experience: We weren’t just sharing a ton of stuff; we were sharing a lot of stuff that wasn’t really helpful. Because we were sharing so much, it became difficult to keep track of what was working and what wasn’t. And because we were sharing so much content, we didn’t always make sure to curate it properly.
In addition to being too busy, we were also posting way too much. In fact, we were posting four or five times to our Facebook page and tweeting up to 14 hours daily. This meant that every post was competing against each other for attention and engagement.
So we stopped sharing so much. Instead, we focused on creating great content that people wanted to read, watch, and listen to. We began to focus on telling stories about real people doing real things.
And we’ve found that focusing on quality over quantity has helped us grow our audience and increase engagement.
You Are Acting Like a Robot
People who follow businesses on social networks and ask questions in that area want to receive a reply. While it doesn’t seem like much, people are willing to wait up to three weeks for a response on Twitter. And while some companies do respond within hours, most take days or even weeks.
If you want to answer the questions of your customers via your Facebook pages, then you need to act like a human being. Most people say that they prefer brands that interact with them on social media.
The same goes for Instagram. Users on Instagram prefer brands that post photos and videos regularly over those that never post anything.
But what does it mean to act like a real person? People want to see emotion behind the brand’s posts. They want to feel cared about. So, avoid stiff, robotic responses and try to connect with your audience when you engage.
You Are Careless With Posts on Social Media
Whether you are posting about your personal life, work, hobbies, travel experiences, or anything else, it is important to remember that what you share on social media contributes to the image of the brand you represent. As such, you need to take care to ensure that you portray a positive, professional image.
As part of this process, you must consider whether your posts meet certain criteria. For example, does your post include information that is relevant to your target audience? If so, it is likely that people will find it interesting and useful. However, if your post includes irrelevant information, it could easily come across as spammy or unprofessional.
You should also think about how much detail you put into each post. People generally prefer longer posts because they feel like they get more out of them. On the other hand, shorter posts tend to attract more attention, especially on social media platforms where there is less room for text.
In addition to considering the length of your posts, you should also consider the context in which you post. In particular, you should avoid posting messages that contain negative or offensive language. This type of language tends to turn off potential readers and can damage your reputation.
Finally, you should always keep in mind that what you share on different social media channels contributes to the overall image of your brand. Therefore, it is important to select the channel(s) best suited to your needs and goals.
For instance, if you plan to use Instagram to promote your blog, you might want to choose a theme that matches your blog’s style. Otherwise, you risk coming across as disingenuous or dishonest. Similarly, if you wish to build your brand’s authority on LinkedIn, you should focus on creating high-quality profiles and engaging in conversations.
You Are Being Too Impersonal With Your Posts
A common mistake that businesses make is the use of auto responders to help speed up the response process to their followers – or their potential customers. This is a great way to keep up with what people are saying about your brand, but it doesn’t give off the feeling that you care about them. When people see a generic message, they assume that you don’t care about them, and they won’t trust you.
Customers want to feel like they’re talking to a person that genuinely cares about their issues, questions, and needs. They want to know that you’ve thought about their situation, and that you really do understand how they feel.
However, if you own a small business and you reply to every single comment, question, and inquiry, you’ll quickly find yourself overwhelmed with work. You might even start getting sick of answering the same questions over and over again.
And if you own or run a large company, you probably have dozens of employees working behind the scenes to handle customer inquiries. But, you still need to take some time out of your day to respond to each and every one of those messages.
For the best of both worlds, why not invest in a good chatbot that can answer most of your customers’ questions without having to spend hours manually handling each request? And then also take some time to personally reply to those questions that can’t be answered by a bot.
You Post Content That Doesn’t Spark Social Engagement
Social Media Marketing is about converting your followers into buyers. This happens when your followers are interested in what you’re posting. Your posts must be engaging enough to encourage your followers to want to read more.
If you post boring content on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, etc., then your followers won’t engage with it and they’ll probably not click. They might even unfollow you.
On the other hand, if you post interesting content, your followers will be more likely to click and share it with their friends.
You Tend to Go Off-Topic
When starting out in Social Media Marketing, many people focus too much on growing their audience, while neglecting the quality of what they publish. This leads to low engagement and poor rankings. To avoid this pitfall, make sure you are covering interesting topics that relate to the type of business you run. You don’t necessarily need to write about your product every single day, but you should definitely be posting something relevant regularly and engaging with your audience.
While ensuring your posts are always informative and keeps the follower informed, you should also try to keep your information posted on your social media platforms relevant to your niche. If you own a business that focuses on financial products, your followers likely don’t care about hearing about how cute your dog is or reading about that delicious recipe you found. They want to learn about ways to invest in stocks or read up on the latest news regarding interest rates.
You Collect Followers For the Sake of Having Followers
A lot of companies tend to focus solely on how many people follow them on social media platforms. While numbers do matter, it is not a good idea to put too much emphasis on follower count alone. After all, there are thousands of accounts out there with millions of followers. In fact, some of those accounts are bots which are able to generate huge amounts of fake followers.
In the end, it is really about engagement rates. If you want to increase your engagement rate, make sure that you post engaging content, particularly on Instagram, where the majority of your audience hangs out. You could even use Instagram Stories to engage with your followers.
You should also consider utilizing different types of posts. For example, you might choose to post videos more often than photos. Or perhaps you could post a mix of both video and images.
The important thing to remember is that you shouldn’t just rely on automated systems like Hootsuite or Buffer to help you manage your social media presence. Instead, you should take control of things yourself. This way, you’ll be able to ensure that you’re reaching out to the right people, at the right times, with the right messages.
You Post Outdated Content
Millennials are the most brand-conscious consumers in history. They grew up with technology, and they don’t like being sold to. They’ve been bombarded with advertising since birth, and it’s hard to break out of that mindset. A good number of millennials say they “never buy anything online.”
Furthermore, they are America’s biggest consumer group. According to Nielsen, millennials make up about one quarter of the total population in the United States. And, as a whole, they spend more money than older generations do.
The problem is that brands often think that because millennials are tech savvy, they’ll just follow along with whatever marketing campaign they throw at them. But, the truth is, millennials aren’t interested in what you’re selling unless they feel there’s something in it for them personally.
If you want to win over millennials and other people, then you have to prove that you’re worth following. You have to consistently provide useful information that will help them achieve their goals. And, you have to show that you care about them enough to give them special attention.
This special attention therefore means making sure that you post content that’s relevant and timely for your audience. If you post news content, you don’t want to post content that covers something that happened 2 months ago. News stories have short life cycles, and if you’re beyond that life cycle, the likelihood of engagement resulting from those news stories is slim to none.
You Avoid Feedback That’s Negative or Harmful
On social media, there will always be those who give negative feedback about your products and services, regardless of what you do for them.
Many companies involved in this negative feedback tend to ignore it, rather than stoking the fire and risking further negative results.
However, there are some things you can do to avoid being negatively impacted by such comments.
First, you should always remember that every person has the right to express his or her opinion. You don’t have to agree with someone else’s opinion, but you must respect others’ opinions. Second, you should never try to silence anyone or force him or her into submission. Third, you should always keep in mind that everyone has different needs and wants. Your product or service might work perfectly fine for one person, while another person might find something wrong with it.
You should always make sure that you understand why someone is giving you negative feedback. Try to figure out whether he or she is just complaining because he or she doesn’t like your product or service, or if he or she is actually experiencing problems with your product or service.
If you believe that someone is providing you with negative feedback simply because he or she doesn’t like your product or service and isn’t experiencing any problems with it, you should ask yourself why this person is choosing to complain about your product or service instead of praising it. This could mean that he or she is trying to look good in front of others. In addition, you should consider asking the person directly if he or she is willing to provide positive feedback.
Finally, you should always take the time to listen carefully to what the person is saying. Don’t jump to conclusions and assume that everything the person says is true. Ask questions to clarify certain points. For example, you could say something along the lines of “I’m sorry I didn’t hear anything you said.” If the person continues to complain, you should politely tell him or her that you already heard them and that you appreciate their input.
You Aren’t Being Transparent
Being transparent is a tricky thing. You don’t want to give away too much information about yourself or your products, but you do want to let your audience know what you’re doing. In fact, according to a recent survey conducted by the American Marketing Association, transparency increases customer loyalty. Companies that are transparent with their consumers tend to have more loyal customers than those that aren’t.
But how does transparency work? Transparency involves publishing your company’s information online, such as on a blog, Facebook page, Twitter account, Instagram feed, etc. This allows your followers to see your company’s activities and learn about your brand. While some companies choose to keep everything behind closed doors, others decide to be open about their actions.
The problem with being completely transparent is that you run the risk of giving away information that could hurt your reputation. For example, if you post pictures of your product without permission, someone might steal your idea and start selling it under your name. Or, if you reveal something embarrassing about yourself, you could lose potential clients. However, if you make sure that you disclose important, relevant information in a timely manner, you’ll increase the likelihood that your followers will view you as trustworthy.
You Are Working Without a Plan
Social media is one of those things that sounds easy enough, but many businesses fail because they don’t know exactly what they’re doing. They think they’ve mastered social media, but they haven’t really done anything.
They might have followed a few guides or even read some articles about how to use social media for business, but they didn’t put everything into practice.
And that’s why most companies end up wasting money and resources because they didn’t understand what they needed to do.
The good news is that there are plenty of free resources out there that will help you figure out how to start using social media effectively. But before you dive headfirst into learning how to do it yourself, you’ll want to develop a clear idea of your objectives.
You’ll also want to identify your target audience, set realistic expectations, and decide whether you want to build brand awareness, increase sales, or both.
Once you’ve got that figured out, you can move forward with creating a social media strategy.
You Assume That Your Audience is Everybody
Knowing your audience is integral to developing an effective strategy. This includes understanding what type of person uses your product or service. What do they want? How do they like to consume information? Do they prefer reading articles or watching videos? There’s no one way to reach your target market; there are many ways to connect with them. But knowing your audience well enough to build a successful marketing strategy requires some research.
Your audience is defined by demographics, interests, behaviors, and attitudes. These characteristics help define your ideal customer. You might think that all customers are the same, but they aren’t. Your audience is very different depending on whether you’re selling shoes online, running a restaurant, or designing a webinar. If you don’t know your audience, you won’t be able to develop a strategy that works for them.
The best way to identify your audience is to look at how they behave. For example, let’s say you run a shoe store. You could survey your current customers about their shoe preferences. Or you could ask your friends and family what types of shoes they wear. Another option is to conduct a focus group. In this scenario, you bring together random samples of your audience together in a group, and have them focus on a couple of aspects of your offering to see how they respond, whether it’s positively or negatively. If they respond positively, you have a winning strategy. If they respond negatively, then you may want to make adjustments.
Either way, no successful social media campaign just “starts.” It’s backed by data, analysis, and a thorough understanding of your audience’s wants and needs.
You Don’t Use The Right Tone for Your Social Posts
Social media platforms are designed to be fun, lighthearted places where we connect with our friends and family. But brands must respect that there are rules to follow when posting on social media.
A recent study found that consumers trust companies that take themselves seriously less than those that don’t. This makes sense because people tend to like brands that are authentic and approachable. Brands that try to play up their corporate image could come across as disingenuous or arrogant, especially online.
In addition to looking professional, brands should choose a voice that feels natural and relatable. If a brand doesn’t feel genuine, it risks coming off as fake or annoying.
Brands shouldn’t make jokes unless they’re relevant to the conversation. And if they do joke around, they should use humor sparingly.
Finally, avoid anything that might offend anyone. Even if it’s just one person, it’s worth avoiding. Because you don’t know which person will be an amplifier of that one negative post, which can then snowball into an avalanche uncontrollably, inflicting irreparable harm on your company’s reputation.
You Use Irrelevant Hashtags
The number one mistake brands make when using social media is posting something without including relevant hashtags. Hashtags are used to categorize posts into topics. They allow you to follow conversations and find out what people are talking about. When you include a hashtag, you’re asking people to join a discussion around your topic.
If you just start typing random words into a chat window, no one will pay attention. You’ll end up getting lost in the sea of posts. Instead, choose a few keywords that relate to your product, event, or campaign. Then add those tags to your post. People searching for those terms will find your post.
You don’t even have to use the exact same tag every single time. For example, you could say #foodie, #dinnerparty, #cooking, #eatingout, etc. Each hashtag could be related to different aspects of your life or topic, but they all help you connect with others.
Creating a Comprehensive Social Media Presence Starts With a Plan
Whenever you begin on creating that smashing social media campaign, you start by creating a plan. This plan should consider things like your audience, their pain points, and things that interest them.
Without this plan to start, you’re kind of stabbing in the dark when it comes to actually executing that plan.
By making sure that you have all of your audience’s attributes worked out, you’re doing something a lot better than stabbing in the dark.
You’re starting with a plan, which can translate into significant results down the line.
When do you plan on implementing your next social media campaign?