5 Careless Mistakes to Avoid in Social Media Marketing
- August 11 2015
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Social media marketing mistakes are often showcased to a very large audience, meaning that they are embarrassing and can be downright detrimental to your business. How do you avoid these mistakes and ensure that you grow, or at the very least, keep your audience? Careful thought and patience is the key, but you also need to be aware of the mistakes that often get overlooked and committed time and again. Rather than putting yourself on “auto pilot” consider each and every post that goes out to your audience before it is sent in order to predict the ramifications of your actions.
1. Don’t Repeat Yourself
Yes, you will likely post the same type of status or update multiple times within a week or even a day in order to reach your entire audience or to get a point across, but do not copy your posts word for word. You might get lucky enough to catch the attention of other audience members that did not see your original post, but what about the viewers that already saw it and are now seeing it for the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th time? You could lose viewers rather than gain more if you do not take the time to spin each post into something unique that everyone can get something out of rather than just annoying them with your posts that are always in the way.
2. Don’t Operate like a Robot
There are certainly plenty of scheduling programs out there, promising to make social media marketing very easy for you, but don’t get comfortable with them. When you get comfortable in your strategy, you stop thinking like a person and think more like a robot that must operate on schedule. Why not shake things up once in a while and post at different times just to see how the response differs? You might end up changing your entire strategy as a result of the findings that you obtain when you change things up a bit. Habit can be a bad thing when it comes to social media marketing; you always need to be on your toes.
3. Don’t be Annoying
Social media marketing is meant to engage customers, not make them angry. If you are constantly posting updates, even if they are completely unique, to the point that you are popping up in your audience’s feed every single time they log on, you could become a nuisance. You want to be seen as informative, not annoying, so avoid over posting so as not to overwhelm your audience.
4. Don’t Tell your Audience What to Do
Sure, it can be tempting to ask for a retweet or to ask your viewers to like or share a post, but if you do this consistently, it loses its touch. Instead, give viewers information that is useful and powerful and the actions that you want to happen will naturally occur. People are willing to share information that is useful to them in an effort to help the people in their network. Just don’t put yourself out there and beg so to speak; let your words speak for themselves.
5. Don’t Ignore Direct Questions or Mentions
Even if you feel overwhelmed at the thought of answering every single question or comment that pops up on social media, you have to do it. You would not ignore a customer that came to you in person, so why would you ignore them on social media? Your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Google + feeds are meant to be an extension of your advertising efforts, which means you need to treat them just as you would if you were in person. Ignoring your audience only negates your efforts.
Social media marketing is a fine art that must be perfected for the greatest results. Don’t fall into the trap of forming a regular habit and never researching to see if changing things might alter your results. In the end, if you avoid these mistakes, social media marketing can become a very lucrative method to increase your sales.
Cameron Mackey
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