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Common Social Media Mistakes Made by Businesses

By Snap Agency July 24, 2018

It’s hard to keep track of all the best marketing practices in regards to social media. New social media platforms are created constantly and even the older sites are always being updated. For example, Snapchat was making strides towards becoming a key medium for businesses to get content out to their consumers, but then Instagram introduced their “story” feature, and the rest is history.  

While the apps keep changing, there are still some cardinal sins of social media that all businesses should be weary of. As a social media management agency, we have extensive experience helping our clients achieve their goals through social media marketing. To help you along, we’ve compiled a list of some mistakes we see businesses make when it comes to their social media marketing.

Not Establishing a Goal

This one cannot be emphasized enough; you need a social media marketing strategy and subsequent goal. Nothing will doom your campaign faster than beginning without a clear plan. What is the demographic you are trying to reach with your campaign? What is the message you want to convey to your users? What do you want the results of your campaign to be? Do you want to increase awareness with more followers? Or generate revenue with more conversions? What’s your budget? How long do you want your campaigns to run?

While simply having a functioning social media page on Facebook, Twitter, etc. is a good way to connect with consumers, you can still achieve more with your social marketing by establishing measurable goals and benchmarks for success, also known as key performance indicators. While boosting the odd Facebook post now and again my seem like a good plan, you could be doing so much more while spending your money much more effectively.

Not Engaging with Your Audience

One of the reasons your followers are actually following you is to engage with you. Social media guru, Jay Baer, contributed to a study that found 42% of social media customers expect a response within 60 minutes. Is it realistic to think that you can respond to all social media inquires in that amount of time? Unless you’re Sean Wrona, an award-winning speed typist, probably not. Especially when your business grows and your follower counts and engagements increase. But that doesn’t mean you can’t try. Check your direct messages, Twitter mentions, and the comment sections on all of your ads and posts often, and whether the sentiment is positive or negative, respond quickly. By making a strong and focused effort to engage with your consumers who are looking for answers, you can build up your trustworthiness as a brand and avoid impatient customers.

Not Being Consistent Across the Board

While different content should be used for different social media platforms, you still need to create a consistent theme across all your accounts. The voice of each platform should be congruent in personality and tonality, as well as any designs or graphics you use. Otherwise, you’ll leave your followers with conflicting messages and you’ll avoid leaving an effective and lasting impression on them.

Not Giving the People What They Want

One of the biggest reasons for consumers following your account is to have access to exclusive deals, promotions, and information. If you don’t offer any promotions on your social media accounts, you run the risk of losing followers who followed your specifically for that purpose.

So, no, this doesn’t mean you need to have a giveaway every week. But, if you want to keep and gain followers, holding promotions is a great way to do that. An easy way to reward your loyal followers is to make sure you post whenever you’re having a sale. You’re going to run the sale in your store anyway, why not promote it on social media?

Not Using Influencers

Whether you’re a big or small company, using influencers in your social media marketing strategy will help you gain credibility. Businesses that don’t use influencers run the risk of falling behind competitors who do, and missing out on untapped networks.

Striking up these relationships isn’t easy. You don’t want to work with influencers who don’t necessarily match up with your brand’s mission and values. However, the rewards when you find the right influencers, are great. Not only will your current followers’ perception of you improve, but you can also gain new customers through your influencers networks, as well as increase sales. When YouTube creator and influencer, Casey Neistat, first posted a video of himself riding a Boosted Board throughout the streets of New York he increased the searches for this product by 300%. So yes, influencer marketing works.

Improve Your Social Media Marketing Now

As you can see, there are more than a few ways you can hurt unintentionally hurt your social media campaigns. But, if you take the time to carefully craft your accounts, posts, messaging, content, and designs, you’ll be well on your way to getting the most out of your social media marketing. If your still unsure of what direction you want to take in terms of your social presence, reach out to our team of social media experts today and we’ll help you get started.