5 social media mistakes to avoid
Even though social media is one of the most important tools in a digital marketer’s toolkit, there are a lot of misconceptions about it. The industry has grown from a place where people share their food photos to a powerful resource that can help any business or brand grow exponentially.
Social media has the power to help you discover your target market, engage with your audience, drive awareness of your products and convert leads into sales.
Here are some interesting facts about social media:
There are more than 3 billion people using social media, and 11 new people start using social media every second.
The average person spends two hours per day on social media.
88% of companies use social media for marketing (the number is probably higher since this study was conducted in 2014).
81% of consumers are likely to purchase an item if it was shared by a friend on social media. And social media influencers are getting brands more sales than celebrities.
The majority of customers expect they’re tweet to be answered within one hour. When companies don’t meet those expectations, 38% of people feel more negative toward the brand.
However, there are a lot of myths when it comes to social media marketing. I’ve compiled some of the biggies.
Social media is free
Ok, yes, technically it’s free to create a social media profile or a Facebook business page. But organic social reach can only get you so far. You have to create a budget for a paid social media strategy. Paid strategies help you target customers, expand your reach, boost brand awareness, drive engagement, increase clicks to your website, and help you gather insight on your audience. All the social media platforms have dashboards so you can see how your ad performed, and help you refine them for future campaigns.
My son/daughter/intern can do it
This is one of the most common mistakes I see (and really can’t believe people still have this mindset). Just because someone grew up in the age of Facebook doesn’t mean he or she is equipped to manage your business’ social media profile. Besides the obvious problems (grammar mistakes, combative responses to negative feedback, publishing posts because they forgot to switch from the business profile to personal account), managing a social media account requires total understanding of your brand and business. If you do have an intern manage your social media profile, keep a careful eye to make sure they answer questions correctly and are portraying your brand in a positive light.
Being on only 1 network
You’re probably more than familiar with the most popular social media networks — such as Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and LinkedIn. These social networks have huge audiences, and it’s important to stay active on them. But there are a lot of niche social media sites where you could be missing leads from. Don’t discount the power of Pinterest, Reddit or Tumblr. But you can even get more granular. Did you know there’s a social media networks for dog lovers? Or young Lego builders?
If you’re going at it alone (meaning there’s no extra help when it comes to social media management), a good rule of thumb is that one person can manage 1 to 2 social media networks at a time. Maybe 3. Anything beyond that the quality of your posts will suffer because you’ll bet stretched too thin.
Final thought: please, please, please don’t “auto-post” your Facebook post across multiple networks. It’s obvious when a post from Facebook it sent to Twitter, etc., and it looks amateur.
Turning every post into a sales pitch
Social media pages shouldn’t be just about selling a product to a customer. It is a “social” media, so engage with your audience instead of shouting at them. Until you get a feel for your audience and the balance of content you should post to maximize engagement, try following the 4-1-1- Rule when creating your publishing schedule. The 4-1-1 Rule suggests that you should post four pieces of new content, one re-post and one self-serving post.
Lack of consistency / no game plan
Your social media pages don’t run on it’s own. When you don’t post regularly, your audience will move on. It takes consistent action to get consistent results. By spending a few hours every week working on your social media strategy, you’ll be more likely stick to your plan. I like to spend Friday afternoons putting together a social media calendar for the following week. I use a Google Sheets template to write my posts create trackable links and curate images. I also set goals, which makes me measure my results and tweak campaigns to achieve the results I want.
It’s OK to make mistakes. The key is to learn from them and move forward to ensure you are meeting your broader business goals.