7 Mistakes That Can Ruin Your Social Media Marketing
Many social media strategies fail due to the inclusion of some mistakes. Know what mistakes you should avoid.
You must have heard of the adage--to err is human--and you must also be familiar with the meaning it carries.
Yes, making mistakes is an intrinsic nature of human beings. And when you run your social media marketing, you can make mistakes that can erode part or whole of its effectiveness.
The number of active social media users worldwide is in the billions. And that continues to grow with every passing day.
Social media has become one of the most influential online spaces for businesses to market their offerings with its phenomenal growth.
While marketing your products or services through social media, you can reach a massive audience of potential buyers in a matter of seconds, especially when using paid social media.
You can gain a lot from social media marketing. But, there can be times when your marketing efforts go in vain.
When you explore the underlying factors, you will discover that it is due to a few mistakes. Therefore, you should be aware of such mistakes and make efforts to correct them.
Here are the common mistakes to avoid:
1. Working Without a Strategy
One of the biggest mistakes you could make in your social media marketing is working blindly and expecting results.
So, you should run the marketing with seriousness and direction. You can regard it as the first step in your social media marketing strategy.
It will help if you create a plan. And that could be a prudent social media marketing strategy.
When you have the correct social media strategy, you can ensure that:
- Your content is relevant to your goals. It will help you restrict from wasting your efforts and resources on a social media campaign that fails to deliver results.
- You are scheduling and arranging posts according to a scheduled timeline. When you post consistently, it can help you grow and maintain a solid organic online presence.
But, you should also explore how you can create an effective social media strategy.
You should explore:
- What do you want to gain from social media? You should make yourself clear if you wish to generate more leads, brand awareness, etc. But, if you do not know what you want, you cannot get your strategy running well.
- Your target audience
- Your action plan in terms of the kind of posts you will make, how you will market the posts to reach your intended audience, and whether you need to add more video content
- The team that will be responsible for maintaining your accounts
- The time and resources you will allocate to social media marketing
- The key performance indicators
The key to running a successful social media marketing campaign is to determine what you want from it. Once you know your objectives, you can strategize in the correct direction.
2. Targeting the Wrong Audience
Figure out if you are targeting the wrong audience. If you are doing so, even your best strategy will fail to deliver results. Again running a social media marketing strategy targeting the wrong audience will mean wastage of time and resources.
The result will be that you will get a huge follower base that can contribute nothing or very little to your goals.
The best thing to maximize your reach to your right target audience is to use features like subtitles and captions. They make it easier for your audience to:
- Watch your videos in sound-sensitive environments, such as offices or noisy places
- Understand the dialogue if it is fast
- Stay attentive to help you pass your message across
- Understand your content despite having hearing problems
3. Ignoring SEO
If you believe that the best SEO practices are not part of your social media marketing campaign, you are wrong. It is also a mistake that many brands make while executing their social media strategy. And the result is everybody’s guess.
You should actuate the best SEO practice while posting on social media. Consequently, you will find your profile ranking higher in search engine results. And that will drive more organic traffic to your profile, and, hence your followers will grow.
Remember that the number of likes, shares, and comments your posts receive impacts your social media ranking and reach.
Therefore, ensure that you post on social media frequently with high-quality and engaging content. And, it will help if you include compelling CAs to make it easy for your followers to share your posts.
4. Excessive Brand Promotions Without Good Content
People use social media to network and communicate, share opinions, and get updated about current events. As such, if you only promote your brand and post automatic backlinks to your website, you will be boring people.
Instead, you should create content that excites and arouses your audience’s interest and triggers conversations.
Ensure you do not make any political remarks in your posts. Instead, you should observe what is happening in your niche and create posts accordingly. And respond to the issues your audience is discussing.
5. Not Using Hashtags
You must know what a hashtag is all about. But, you might not know how to use it properly, when, or even why.
A hashtag begins with the “#” symbol followed by a keyword, with no spaces or punctuations. Hashtags are a way to label your content and associate a post with a particular topic.
When users search with your hashtag, they will find your content on the topic. Therefore, it is a good way of enabling your target audience to find you.
6. No Human Touch
Social media is all about connecting with other people, so it can be a mistake if you rely too much on automation. It can lead to the erosion of the human touch, which is essential to be present in your social media interaction.
Therefore, do not fail to participate in the conversation in the comment section. It will improve your social media presence and help you build valuable relationships with your audience.
7. No CTA
You should include CTAs to tell your audience what to do next. Only then your content will be meaningful.
It is also a motivation to your audience to become your customers. Finally, a CTA can be an invitation to visit your website.
Conclusion
Having a social media presence is not enough. You need to have the right strategy to make your social media marketing campaign successful. And you also should avoid common mistakes.