There are about 2.77 billion users on social media. With social media marketing becoming more popular, most businesses are starting to join the social media work to promote their products/services. Social Media is a great channel for businesses to display their products/services on a more personal and interactive level with their audiences. They can also gain massive exposure, and have the chance of doing influencer marketing which has proven to be very efficient.
As social media marketing becomes more essential, businesses need to be aware of some common mistakes to avoid!
Here are 10 common social media mistakes that you should avoid at all costs:
1. Not setting up a goal
This applies to everything you do regarding marketing. When you start your social media accounts, you should set up a goal for yourself. This goal should be a SMART goal. What exactly are you trying to achieve with your social media accounts? Why do you want to achieve this?
When setting up your goals for your social media marketing, remember these words:
- Specific: If you want to reach a particular amount of followers, then write down your specific goal.
- Measurable: Are you tracking your data and results to see where you are at every day? You have to be able to measure your data to analyze it.
- Achievable: Is it in your power to achieve this goal?
- Realistic: Don’t set an unrealistic goal for yourself. Setting up an unrealistic goal will lead you to disappointment and discouragement.
- Timely: Set a timeframe for yourself.
2. Failing to Strategize
Do you ever land on a business’ social media accounts, and you don’t have a clue what they do? Or what they are trying to get you to do next? This is typically because they have no social media marketing strategy. After you decide your goal for your social media, you should create an action plan. Without an action plan, you will get lost in the process, and your social media accounts will seem to have no real goal set up. Don’t let your focus wander because you are not setting up a strategy.
For example, if your goal is mainly brand awareness, then your strategy will have posts that give users the opportunity to get to know your brand better, rather than all promotions and selling points.
3. Not posting specifically for your target audience
Who is your audience specifically? Do you know their age group, location, interests, careers, and more?
You need to speak to the people who you are trying to target. Something that a lot of businesses do, is they just try to make themselves look amazing online. Your potential users do not care about how amazing you are because you have plants in your office or because you won an award (though this is nice to add to social media), they mainly care about how amazing you are at helping them solve their issues. They have one main pain point which is why they NEED your business.
Make sure to ALWAYS post for your audience, don’t worry about not reaching as many people as possible, reach the right people.
4. Overselling and spamming
There is nothing worse than a business who is continually trying to sell something with no proof or real value. If you are continually telling people to buy your products or services without telling them exactly why they should, and why it will change their lives, you best believe they will click the ‘unfollow’ or ‘delete’ button quicker than you can blink.
Take up MEANINGFUL space in their newsfeed. Did you know that one of the most popular accounts on Instagram is the 8fact account, where ALL they do is post interesting facts and statistics? The reason as to why so many people follow this account is because there is no selling, there are no promotions, there is no fluff. All they do is inform people, and provide valuable knowledge that makes users more aware of things going around them. So, try to connect your main audience’s pain points, to exciting and useful information, that promotes and shows your business as the best solution possible. I know, it’s hard to do, but once you figure out how, you will be golden.
5. Getting/buying fake followers
Having 10,000 followers, and getting 3 likes is not a good look. A lot of businesses hire social media management agencies, who buy a lot of followers for them. Whatever your goal is, I can assure you that fake followers will not help you achieve that goal. In fact, Instagram sometimes automatically deletes fake followers all at once. So, if you one day you have 10,000 and the next day you have 1,000 it could be that Instagram detected way too many fake followers on your account.
When explaining this to our clients, a lot of them have the objection of, “Well, can’t fake followers still increase our brand awareness because we can rank higher on the explore page?” My answer is “absolutely not!” It will not help your brand awareness at all; it will actually hurt it. Let me explain, Instagram connects accounts that think are related to each other. If the majority of your followers are fake followers who follow other fake accounts, then your account will be connected to fake followers. This means, that you will only rank high on explorer pages of fake accounts, not the ones of your target audience.
6. Ignoring comments and messages
The primary purpose of social media is to be social. When you ignore all messages and comments on your pictures, you give off the impression that you are not approachable or that you’re a programmed computer that is scheduled to post. Build long term connections with your followers, and reply to these comments and messages as much as you can. People will be a lot more motivated to engage with your accounts when they see that you are responsive.
Of course, I know that life is hectic and you cannot always reply to everyone who is commenting on your social media, but make an effort to spend at least 30 minutes a week focusing on responding to your users and showing them that you are reading their comments.
7. Posting about 1 topic only
I know that earlier I told you to only post for your target audience, but that does not mean post about one topic only. We know that you have your industry and most of your posts will be related to that. However, don’t be scared to throw in motivational posts, funny posts, or even personal posts about fun activities you are doing. The ability to connect with people on social media is essential to them wanting to keep seeing your posts and engaging with them. Without having a diversified account with various posts that target different segments of people within your target audience, it is impossible to please all of your followers fully.
You want your posts to flow nicely and keep people interested. If you are only posting about one service or one product, in particular, every single day, then people will quickly become uninterested and unfollow. One of the best advantages of social media is that users are able to find you even when they don’t need your product right away. Being able to stay in uses’ radar for when they DO need you is essential. So, make sure you are keeping them interested by posting diversified yet relevant stuff.
8. Using foul language
I’ve seen this a lot. I know plenty of business accounts using foul language or discriminatory language to be funny and gain more followers. Think long and hard about this mistake. Whatever you post online will stay there forever, no matter if you delete it all. As soon as search engines crawl the content, your post is set under your name for life.
I don’t recommend any businesses to use foul language on their social media accounts. Sure, some of the things and memes can be very funny, but at the end of the day, you do not want users to question your integrity, intentions or morals. You need to always keep your account professional and remember to never offend someone. The issue with foul language, aside from the fact that it’s very unprofessional, is that it has the ability to offend numerous users all at once. It is more often misunderstood than taken lightly, so try your best to stay away from it. Your reputation online and offline should always be positive and uplifting.
9. Reposting most of your posts
Reposting other users’ posts, or statistics is great as long as you don’t do it too much. There is no real benefit in only posting reposts. Sure, you may get lots of likes but if your content is not original, people will just follow the one who actually created the content. Don’t ever repost content without sourcing the original creator, because this could give you a bad reputation online and the original content creator could get very upset. This is why many pictures have watermarks on them.
10. One post for all platforms mentality
Social media is different across all channels. The same way you wouldn’t put the same content on your homepage and contact us section is the same way you shouldn’t just copy pasty every post on every platform. Each platform has different audiences, and each platform showcases your posts differently. For example, on Facebook pictures and articles are great, but you have to add a bit more information as the main thing they see is the caption right on top of your posts. Unlike Instagram, Facebook is much more content driven.
LinkedIn, on the other hand, is more for businesses and business owners, and Instagram is more picture-driven. On Instagram 30 hashtags a post is good, but on Facebook, it’s not the best idea.
They are all unique int heir own way and have certain limitations. Make sure you are optimizing each post for each for each specific platform.
There you have it!
Have you been making any of these mistakes? It’s time to stop!
Think about some of your favourite social media accounts and reflect on their strategy. I bet you they don’t make these 10 mistakes! A successful social media is one that connects with the right people, at the right time, in the right way.
