Almost everyone uses social media in some way. According to Oberlo, the most recent numbers show that in 2023 there were 4.89 billion social media users worldwide. It’s now expected to grow at 5.85 billion by 2027, with an average 4.2% growth in four years!
Whether you use social media for business, to connect with friends or for entertainment, I’m sure you have found yourself aimlessly scrolling for hours at a time. In all your time online though, have you considered using social media strictly for marketing your business?
In this article, I dive into 12 major social media mistakes you may be guilty of when trying to market your business online. We’ll also look at how to avoid them and become a social media marketing pro!
The Importance Of Social Media Marketing
Let’s start with the basics: why is social media marketing so important? According to a report, around 94% of marketers consider social media one of the most effective forms of digital marketing. Social media marketing is a terrific tool for businesses looking to expand brand awareness, increase web traffic, and promote their products or services.
Moreover, social media is a fantastic way to share your brand’s mission and to encourage audience interaction with your organization. There are many businesses who have not spent a single cent on a digital advertisement, and with just the assistance of excellent social media content and great interaction with their audience, they have created a customer base who connected with them. If you are looking for a way to market your business without breaking the bank, social media marketing is your holy grail.
Social media marketing is also a cost-effective way to promote a business. By sharing their brand’s mission and stories, many organizations have successfully encouraged audience interaction, resulting in a solid customer base without spending a single cent on digital advertisements.
Long story short, social media has become the most influential and valuable virtual tool. Platforms are not only used for social networking but are a great way to digitally advertise your brand.
12 Social Media Mistakes You Might Have Made
Social media can be tricky. At some point, I’m sure you’ve committed one of these mistakes while implementing social media marketing. Most likely, your audience hasn’t noticed and will forgive a small error if you’re only guilty of one or two of these. However, these blunders can be fatal to your social media presence if you combine several of them.
Social Media Today has identified some common mistakes that can hurt your reputation, lose followers and undermine the work you’re putting in to build an effective, engaging social media presence. These issues should be avoided at all costs. Even if you’ve been working in social media marketing for a while, it’s worth going over these often made mistakes to ensure you don’t slip up and cause challenges for your business.
Let’s dive in to the 12 most frequent and deadly social media mistakes your business may be guilty of making.
Mistake 1: No Social Media Marketing Strategy
Planning a social media strategy is important to build online presence.
It’s no secret that one of the most vital things you can do to make your social media marketing successful is to have a solid marketing strategy in place. Trying to build a brand on social media without a defined strategy can be totally counterproductive. It’s like trying to make a wedding cake without a recipe.
You need a social media strategy because it will help you build a powerful, organic online presence. You’ll be able to plan and schedule posts in advance. Being prepared will also help you stick to social media rule number one: posting consistently. Failure to maintain consistency is one significant reason social media accounts stop growing. WordStream mentions “doing your social media marketing without knowing who you are talking to, how to market your posts, and what step to take next is like driving a car without knowing how much fuel you have and where the road is going. It’s a mistake that can make your whole campaign fall completely flat — and make all your effort wasted.”
If you haven’t already, start crafting and implementing a strategy as soon as possible! Consider partnering with a reputable digital marketing agency such as Three Girls Media who can provide valuable insights and guidance.
Mistake 2: Posting Irrelevant Social Media Content
People have different expectations for the content they want to see on each platform. To ensure that your social media content is engaging, it’s important to meet the expectations of your audience. If you want people to share your content, you need to give them something that is worth sharing! Memes are a great way to establish relevance and inject fun into your content.
Whatever your social media goals are, what matters is that you bring value to your audience. This can be achieved by creating content that is informative, entertaining, or both. Dull or irrelevant social media content will simply be ignored. Remember, the key to success on social media is to create content that resonates with your audience and provides them with value.
Constantly monitor your progress and make informed decisions with social media metrics.
Mistake 3: Failing To Maximize Social Media Analytics
Social media analytics are crucial for measuring the success of your social media marketing campaigns. SproutSocial states that the most common and often important metrics to pay attention to are engagement, impressions and reach, share of voice, referrals and conversions and response rate and time. Combined these will give you a 360º view of your social media performance. With time and new goals, you’ll add new systems of measurement to make them more relevant to your business.
Mistake 4: Thinking Each Social Media Platform Is The Same
Although you want to maintain a consistent brand voice, it’s a mistake to post exactly the same content across all platforms. Think about each of your social media accounts, and personalize your content to fit each one. Even if you have nearly the same thing to say, make sure that your message fits with the style and tone of each platform.
Mistake 5: Neglecting Your Target Audience
Ignoring your target audience and their needs or expectations is one of the biggest social media mistake you can make. Therefore, it is crucial to write posts that are specifically tailored to your business’ target audience. It is important to target the right audience to ensure that your social media posts are effective and will increase the likelihood of engagement with your posts.
Mistake 6: Too Much Brand Promotion
Instead of using your social media platforms to only promote your business, try to use them to join conversations that are already happening. Listen to what your audience is already discussing, read what influencers are writing and then design your content to respond to these signals. A good rule of thumb to follow is called 80/20. Eighty percent of your social media content should be useful, helpful and interesting to your audience but not directly promote your brand, and twenty percent of your content should be self-promotional, talking about your products or services.
Mistake 7: Irregular Social Media Updates
Hootsuite points out that social media gives you to the opportunity to connect with followers every time they log in. Post at least once per day and keep your social media content entertaining, informative and up-to-date. Your followers will be pleased to see your new content in their feeds if they know it is fresh and being regularly updated.
Mistake 8: Failing To Reciprocate Audience Engagement
If people are engaging with your social media content, you need to respond! People love to interact with brands on social media, and if they have a positive experience, it helps build brand loyalty and sets you apart from the pack. If someone comments on your post, comment back and make sure they feel seen.
Mistake 9: No Call To Action In Social Media Posts
Don’t forget to strategically include a call to action in your social media content.
When posting social media content, especially promotional content, make sure to include a call to action. This could be asking consumers to visit your website or to send you an email. Without a clear call to action, consumers can be left uncertain of what to do next. Do yourself a favor and motivate your audience to take the next step in becoming a customer by including a strong and clear call to action.
Mistake 10: Failing To Proofread Social Media Content
Social Media Today states “your social media profiles, like your website, are your virtual shop windows. Making a mistake in your content – either a simple typo or a full-blown grammar gaff – can look as though you don’t care. When you’re drafting your content, make sure you proofread your copy before you publish. Or even better, share it with a colleague to proofread before posting.”
Mistake 11: Concentrating On Quantity Over Quality
When you’re posting on a regular basis, it can be easy to get into bad habits and brands often make the mistake of thinking that posting any content is better than not posting at all. Why get 100 new followers when 96 of them aren’t the right fit? Social media is about quality over quantity. Your social media content contributes to a reputation over time and if you spend more effort on trying to post often, without paying attention to the quality and dependability of what you’re posting, your consumers will stop listening by unfollowing you or simply ignoring your posts.
Mistake 12: Not Posting Consistently
Producing and posting social media content on a consistent basis is the true staple of social media marketing. If your business wants to build its credibility and loyalty, posting on a regular basis is absolutely key to its success. Ideally, you should post a minimum of once per day, per platform. Some platforms call for much more than that. If your business doesn’t have the time to post consistently or to produce large amounts of social media content, look no further! Three Girls Media offers world-class social media marketing services. Let us take on the burden of your social media marketing.
What’s The Takeaway?
These tips will put you on track to be a successful social media marketer. Building a social media presence isn’t easy, and the mistakes talked about above could negatively impact your business. Keep them in mind when creating your social media strategy and get posting today!
Let Three Girls Media Assist With Your Social Media Strategy
Hopefully you have a better understanding of social media marketing. Please contact us if you would like to learn more! We’re happy to offer a free, no-obligation, 30-minute phone or video consultation to discuss what types of social media marketing you’d like to implement and how we can help. We have a full staff of seasoned social media marketing professionals who are eager to take your social media to the next level!
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