When Social Media first came on the scene, like all new fandangled trends, it was seen as not entirely necessary by most marketers.
In fact, a lot dismissed it thinking it’d be a flash in the pan.
But that’s all changed in the past few years.
It’s gone from a nice-to-have, to a must-have part of your marketing arsenal, but that still doesn’t suggest that everyone’s got a handle on how to use it.
Trouble is, while it can be an amazing way to build your brand, social media also has the potential to erode or even destroy your other marketing efforts (and even your business itself) if handled badly.
Here are 10 social media mistakes to avoid.
1. Not using social media because you think it’s unimportant or irrelevant to your business.
We can’t put it any simpler than this – if you continue to neglect social media as part of your overall marketing strategy, then you do so at your own peril.
Social media has proven that it’s here to stay and will only continue to grow – in terms of the number of people using it and it’s importance to your business.
It really needs to form an integral part of your online marketing strategy, and be exploited for its potential to build your brand, build relationships and drive traffic to your website or into your physical shopfront.
And if you’re still iffy about social media, consider these few stats:
· 172 million different people visit Facebook daily
· 40 million visit Twitter daily
· 22 million people visit LinkedIn daily
· 20 million people visit Google+ daily
· 17 million people visit Pinterest daily
(stats care of mbaonline.com/a-day-in-the-internet/)
2. Failing to plan
You know the old saying – fail to plan, and you plan to fail. Well this definitely, definitely applies to social media.[Tweet this]
Memorable quotes re social media marketing
First of all, you need to identify & set clear goals for your social media presence – before launching. Otherwise, how can you figure out your ROI?
Then, as we spoke about in a recent blog, you need an overall plan to manage your social media requirements.
It can be a simple spreadsheet, but it’ll detail what types of posts and activities you need to do each week by day, who will manage the activity, and will take into account what’s happening in your overall marketing plan, your business as a whole, your industry and community.
And like any part of your marketing – make sure your plan is realistic.
3. Inconsistent communication
Just like any aspect of your marketing, your social media activity and branding needs to be consistent.
For example, by using different names, images or messages across the different platforms, you run the risk of confusing your audience at best and alienating them at worst.
The best brands know that the key to building a distinct, memorable and easily identifiable brand is all about consistency.
And this applies to the tone too. Make sure that the voice you use for your tweets and posts match your brand.
On the flipside, remember don’t confuse consistency with copy & pasting!
If you try to engage your customers across all of your platforms with identical content, you run the risk of losing them – the ones who follow you on all social channels will notice and are likely to be turned off. So make sure you’re not being lazy. Keep your content consistent, but tweak it for each channel.
4. Annoying your audience by posting irrelevant, unnecessary content
How well a post, tweet, pin or any other social activity does comes down to one thing – engagement.
Just like any other aspect of your online marketing strategy – social media needs to be built upon quality content.
Quality content is engaging content, and it needs to be of interest, value and relevance to your target audience.
Because it’s your content that leads to conversations, which in turn builds relationships, which in turn drives the all important ROI.
Whatever you do, don’t fall into the trap of posting for the sake of it.
If you’re stuck for ideas, check out our recent blogs on what to post of Facebook and Twitter to banish writer’s block.
5. Wasting money & effort by posting at the wrong time
Leading on from #4 – there’s no point posting quality content if you’re doing it at the wrong time!
Social media is all about immediacy and being poignant at the time. After a certain amount of time has elapsed, your post is unlikely to be seen – for Facebook this can be an hour or two and just a few minutes with a Tweet.
So make sure you think about your target audience and their lifestyle as to when they’re most likely to view your content, and pay attention to your stats. When are you getting the most attention and engagement?
Experiment to see what times work the best.
And the great thing is, you don’t have to be chained to your computer to make sure you post at the right time – using a combination of scheduled posts and physically posting yourself will help you cover all bases.
6. Forgetting to promote your social media profiles
Where’s the sense in using social media if you don’t tell anyone about it!
Take every opportunity to be social and share your own social details.
Whether that’s online on your website, blogs, newsletter, emails or in more traditional methods of communication and promotion.
7. Only using Facebook & ignoring the rest
When you say the words social media, the majority of people still instantly think of Facebook. And while it is the largest and most popular social network, it’s not the only one.
It’s been joined by Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Pinterest, Foursquare, Instagram, Tumblr and LinkedIn, to mention but a few. All of which can offer your business different ways to target and engage existing and potential customers.
Social media marketing isn’t about one-size-fits all.
Just like traditional media and communication such as TV, direct mail, billboards, print and radio – you need to identify which social media platforms will work best for your business.
A great example of this – Foursquare rocks for our restaurant and winery friends who want to market their physical location to local customers.
The key to social media success – target the network where your target audience is spending their time.
8. Only talking about yourself
In Social Media – the golden rule is the 80/20 rule.
80% of the time you want to add value to your visitors with non-business content that’s informative and entertaining (aka cool stuff that’s related to your brand) and then promote your wares 20% of the time.
Yes you want to promote your brand and get people interested, but it’s not about me, me, me. Or shouting ‘buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff’!
Because social media isn’t about advertising – it’s about conversations.
9. Turning on autopilot
As we just mentioned in #8, social media is about conversations.
So if you choose to set and forget by simply posting and then not checking to see the response, or using a scheduling tool and never actually logging on, you’re making one of the biggest mistakes of them all – not talking back to your audience.
Facebook is where this happens the most. In fact, some have estimated that a whopping 70% of brands are ignoring their fan’s comments…are you one of them?
If you ignore comments, you’re blowing all of the money you’ve spent on your social media campaign and you’re running the risk of some serious brand damage.
The faster you can make your response time, the happier you can keep your fans – aka your existing and potential customers.
10. Failing to measure
Once you’ve created goals, developed a plan and are putting it all into place, you need to make sure you measure so you know which parts of your social media marketing are working for you.
And no, it’s not just about how many Facebook fans or Twitter followers you have.
It’s about which channels are producing the best results and the best ROI (return on investment).
Ultimately, you want to increase Traffic to your website – so that’s the first thing to keep an eye on using Google Analytics or similar.
Then check to see if your social media traffic is converting. Easiest way to track your social media efforts? Use unique links from each platform or run social media only promotions.
There are other ways to track ROI as well, all dependent on the goals you’ve set.
Until next time…..
