The verdict is out - recent research shows that 82% marketers now believe that marketing via social media can earn them a substantial ROI. If you haven't experience real benefits from your social media efforts as yet, you could be making one, or several, of these costly mistakes.
1. Being you-centric
By definition, a business is born out of solving problems, and it makes sense to reiterate that purpose on your social feeds, as opposed to using it as a channel to blast out your latest ads.
By focusing on the problem(s) that your business solves, you put the focus on your audience and their needs, which is one of the best ways of expanding your reach and resonance on social platforms. Based on patterns of what your audience likes, fill your content calendar with curated content from trusted industry sources using a curation software.
How you present your services to your audience can make all the difference. Don't put the spotlight solely on your offerings, make your potential customers the heroes instead and focus on serving them the best you can.
2. Isolating social from other media
Social media marketing isn't a thing, it's simply marketing on social media. Yes, social is different, due to its audience and environment, but in essence your social marketing should be part of a larger scheme of things. If it isn't, you're seriously limiting your potential reach and impact.
Imagine you're running a social media contest. If you restrict contest announcements to a few posts on your social media feed, you would reduce your impressions. If you also mention the contest on your website, blog and in your newsletter, you would cast a larger net for potential participants. The same goes for blog post promotions. Promote your post on social and via email, and add social share/follow plug-ins on your blog and in your newsletter.
Integrating your media helps build a unified traffic system that can help you keep the traffic you earn.
3. Ignoring content feedback
Do you check your social media content for feedback? Content maybe a push strategy, but unless you monitor what you're pushing, you can't improve its effectiveness.
Social media reactions tell you if your audience likes your content or not, and tracking response patterns to your content can help refine your overall strategy.
What works for some companies may not work for others - while you can initiate your efforts based on case studies and what your competitors are doing, you may want to tailor those tactics to best fit your audience and your brand. To do that, it's necessary to invest in tracking and analyzing content feedback. Study engagement metrics and see what the comments on your posts say to assess the effectiveness of your efforts.
4. Misjudging your social audience
Audience research is a serious part of social success - unless you know who you're talking to, what interests them, concerns them and what makes them tick, you can't be sure of what to post. Guesses and assumptions will lead you nowhere substantial, the longer you delay audience research, the more time and effort you lose to inept content strategies.
Understanding your audience is key in getting them to respond. Incidentally their social media activity and behavior patterns is what will decide when you post, and will affect how often you post. If Millennials are your target audience, you may want to focus on building a micro-influencer marketing strategy because they're more heavily influenced by recommendations from friends and family. If Baby Boomers are who you're targeting, you may want to focus on thought-leadership and brand credentials.
5. Spamming audience feeds
There is such a thing as over promoting content. Have you tried promoting your content several times in the same day? If it hasn't earned you extra-traffic, you're probably causing more damage than earning benefits.
If the same link ends up on a social platform too many times in a given time period, your audience may develop an irritability towards your brand. While iteration is important for a message to resister in your audience's minds, too much of it can also make them immune to it. Create a content promotion plan that includes some variety, value and doesn't saturate your social following.
The idea is to build an integrated marketing strategy that's audience-centric. Share what connects with them, at a frequency that's regular enough to reach most of your followers, and make sure to keep an ear out for feedback. This is how you succeed on social.