Using social media as a part of your digital marketing strategy is essential when it comes to promoting your business in this day and age. Whether you’re an influencer, creator or a plumber, not taking advantage of social media puts you at a disadvantage when it comes to marketing yourself and what you have to offer. Did you know that using social media incorrectly can have as dire, if not even worse consequences? Whilst it sounds like a bit of a minefield, and right now you may be beginning to list off all of the potential mistakes you could have made with your social media, not to worry, as avoiding costly mistakes on social media is easily avoided. Here are some ways your social media could be going wrong and ways you can fix it!
Not Having a Social Media Strategy
One of the very first social media mistakes anyone can make is not having a strategy. When starting any project, it’s always advisable to have a plan in place – long term goals, where you want to start, what you want out of the project. Social media is no different, and essentially that is what a strategy is. With a few added aspects.
When creating your social media strategy, consider which platforms you want to use for your business – there are many, and we’ve already spoken about which ones to consider, how many and why for your business. It’s also important to consider your content here too – making a calendar to keep up with holidays that are relevant to you and your business to tailor your content accordingly. Also, ensure that whatever strategy you come up with aligns with your target audience – there’s no use in posting content that doesn’t attract the customers you want or are interested in your content. Creating a strategy allows you to consider these things right from the get-go, instead of jumping in unprepared.
Focussing on Quantity over Quality
Now when you first start out it’s important to post and be active consistently of course, but it’s also important not to pump out content that isn’t quality, as it will harm your chances from the off set. A very common mistake when beginning on social media is to over post and under deliver, which can be incredibly damaging, but it can also cause what content you do make to go stale, and for you to quickly run out of ideas if you’re not careful. Also consider this, how irritating have you found it when you’re consistently spammed by the same thing, all the time? Your followers will feel the same, and eventually it will lead to less engagement, or even losing your followers altogether.
Making a schedule can help you with this, as it allows you to plan out your content, so you don’t forget to post one week, and over-post the next. Websites such as Meta Business Suite, Creator Studio and Publer are great places to start, and they even have planners, calendars, and analytics so you can keep up with your social media in a relaxed and organised way.
This also applies to your social media platforms – using too many social platforms could lead you to feeling overwhelmed – it’s better to have less platforms that you use often than too many you don’t use at all. Start by being active on a couple of platforms and see how you feel from there – you may find they’re more than enough.
Not Identifying your Target Audience
Another big mistake, and this applies to your entire business and marketing strategy, is not identifying your target audience. Who is going to use your product or service? Why are they going to use it? Understanding this is paramount to getting your product in front of the right people to sell it. On top of this, as already mentioned, you must consider who uses the social media platforms you’re intending to use. For example, Facebook has a more active older demographic (despite statistically having more younger users) whilst Instagram attracts more creative professionals. Do a bit of research before deciding what platform you want to use, as it may highly affect your content and overall strategy. You should always be aware of where your audience is so you can spend your time and effort in the right areas, and also create the type of content that speaks to them.
Posting The Same Content Across Platforms
Now of course sometimes you will need to share the same information across all of your platforms, announcements, news, important information that all of your customers/audience should know. But it’s important that your content varies across your platforms as each platform has a different way of sharing content – for example, Instagram is very image focussed, whilst TikTok is all about video. It’s also important to vary your copy on these platforms too, as Twitter has its famous word limit, whilst Facebook does not, and Instagram does not allow for clickable links on its content. This even applies down to hashtags – whilst hashtags are great for Instagram and Twitter, they aren’t as useful on Facebook.
With all of these things in mind, be sure to vary your content and tailor it for the platforms you intend to use, and the audiences that are there.
Not Communicating with Your Audience
The great thing about social media is the ability to build a community around your brand and for your customers to communicate directly with you therefore, not doing this is a massive misstep. When someone takes the time to leave a comment on your posts, whether it’s a question or not, respond to it. Not only is this the right thing to do from a PR standpoint, but it’s customer service 101. Beyond that, it’s also a great way of encouraging engagement from your audience and developing a relationship with them. This can lead to learning more about them and them about you – people like buying from people they like after all, so develop that relationship with them.
The same also applies to messages – ignoring them comes across as unprofessional. If it helps, you can set up automatic responses and, once you begin getting inundated by them, set up a template for common questions asked there.
Finally, ensure you interact with other accounts too. Networking with others in your business sector is a great way of encouraging relationships between you, and who knows, it could greatly benefit your business long term too.
Not Using Analytics to Your Advantage
Insights are a great way to tell what’s doing well and what isn’t, so not taking advantage of that information is a mistake. If you’re using social media for business, it’s important to understand how your content is performing, even more so if you’ve taken the time to develop a strategy – you may have to make some alterations if it isn’t doing as well as you think. But how would you know if you’re not checking it?
If we can help you with creating a social media strategy, get in touch.
