Social Media was once an unchartered territory for brands. However, when the marketers follow that billions of customers flocked in the platform like Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, and Instagram- the idea to tap their target audiences using such platforms click in their minds. Now, a significant number of marketers (almost 97%) use social media to establish connection with the buyers. There is no doubt that social marketing is very much popular. However, the problem is, most of the marketers still struggle with the tactics to create a relevant, personalized and engaging experience for their audiences.
The confused brands are not only pushed to the side-lines by the consumers, they miss out the opportunity to build valuable marketing relationships with the target audiences. Here are a few blunder of social marketing that the marketers should avoid in order to build engaged, interested, and loyal customer base.
Posting only texts
Pictures are the focus of the social media content. People prefer and get engaged with visual contents much faster than simple texts. Twitter confirms that adding photos and videos impressively boost the numbers of retweets.
Tweets with images show an average boost of 35% in Retweets. While tweets with videos get 28% boost. So, the marketers can miss out a huge opportunity to connect with the buyers, flooding the tweets with texts. The twitter page of Samsung mobile is charming. It has got illustrations, smart videos, and fascinating images.
A buyer trying to understand the features of Samsung Gear S will certainly find an image more informative than just the texts.
The marketers have to use the pictures cleverly and act accordingly.
Audience are insignificant
Most of the marketers often commit the biggest mistake using their advertising approach in social marketing. Unlike the traditional media advertising, you cannot just say good things about your brand on social media platforms. If you are not a good listener and fail to identify the needs of the potential customers, social media users can unfollow or remove your content from their feed for good.
Instead of talking about yourself, highlight the interests of your audience. Read your target audience's content and join discussions to learn what is important to them. Create content and commence conversations that add value instead of cluttering the lives of the readers.
Building up a large audience base
Marketers often think that they can work much better if they concentrate their focus on a specific social network. However, to increase your visibility you have to maintain a stronger presence in several social networks.
You need to have a clear idea about whom you are trying to target through these networks. Your look out will certainly be brand influencers and prospects. However, there is no point establishing connection with someone who will pay no attention. Therefore, watch where those people are active. You should follow their actions from one network and respond them in a different network. Here are a few examples:
- If they share your content on Twitter, thank them with an invitation or message on Twitter
- When they like your post on Facebook, thank them at the time of sharing the post on Twitter
Stop striving for bigger audience, target your cross channel activity to target potential customers. These kinds of actions will also make people aware of your presence in different social media networks.
Forgetting to think before you post
Using news events and stories for marketing and advertising purposes on the social media networks has become a trend. We see some clever newsjacks during the Oscars 2013 on Twitter. Brands use the popular event to amplify their own content.
However, failing to keep an eye on the popular events at the time of tweeting can act as a serious backlash. GAP was badly criticised when it tried to promote a discount without paying heed to Hurricane Sandy. You have to be time-sensitive as far as social marketing is concerned. It is better to promote late than to be perceived as offensive by the audience.
Avoiding complains and negative reviews
If the customers have complains, whom will they tell- their friends, family or your customer service department? Modern consumers can now share their negative reviews with the entire social network users. Majority of the customers who complain about a brand on social network expect that they will get response within sometime.
Though, complains on the social media network will not appear on the search engine results, but neglecting it will be the greatest mistake that a business can do. Instead, try to connect with the person who has posted a negative comment. If it is your fault, accept it, and apologize for it.
Thinking your social media initiative is effective
Most of the marketers assume that their social media strategy works. Majority of the brands using the social media platforms for marketing fail to measure the ROI of their efforts. It is easy to keep a measure of the likes and retweets to understand how engaged the audience are on social media platforms, but those numbers do not reveal the complete picture.
There are several analytics tools that help the marketers to measure the ROI of their social media initiatives.
The buyers on the social media platforms are constantly bombarded with deals, promos, and latest offers. How you will stand out in that crowd? Building up a community of brand loyalist today is not much about what you are selling. The people are more inquisitive about what you are saying. The nature of the social networks make it easier for the brands to talk with their audience.
Today, the communication is customer focused. The customers expect that the marketers should be aware of how, where, and when they will connect with them on social media. Every marketer has the strategy to reach that goal. However, if they can avoid these mistakes while achieving their aim, it can help them to be successful.