Saturday 26 November 2016

8 Major Social-Media Mistakes Your Business Can't Afford to Make

Social media marketing is crucial for growing your business. No wonder a lot of businesses are considering it a must-have component of marketing strategies. Unfortunately, most businesses do not know the right way of doing it. They make a lot of mistakes. Knowing these and avoiding them on social media will increase your chances of success dramatically.




Here are 8 mistakes you must avoid doing on social media:

1. No Interaction with Followers


Social media is the number one line of communication available online in today's time. It is no secret that the majority of consumers is plugged into social media almost 24 x 7. No wonder social media are  perceived as a major customer support tool by experts. Many modern day businesses have realized the importance of social media as a potential marketing strategy. The idea is to take advantage of your follower's dependence on the social media and the amount of time they devote to it. Create some raving fans for your business with this opportunity. Each business is different and targets a unique audience. Hence, you must think of content your followers would be likely to engage with. Take care that your social media posts are more than traditional advertisements and visible efforts to convert followers into customers.

2. More Promotional Than Necessary


Posting ad after ad can make things difficult and very complicated. This will scare your followers away. So focus only on introducing offers very slowly. Don't make your followers feel that all of your posts are glorified ads. They will find other accounts to follow and stop returning to you. Your business needs them more than they need you.

3. No Calls-to-Action (CTAs)


Increasing sales is not just about collecting followers. Each social media profile provides you with space to place your website link. So why is it that so many businesses miss out on an opportunity to collect leads? Putting website’s homepage URL in these sections will not work. Simply put a link to your newsletter offer. You may even use direct-to-purchase offer or downloadable white paper for the same. Remember that most social media clicks to hit your homepage are wasted clicks. The visitors may not have enough time to find the offers. Focus on sending them directly to offers which increases conversion rates.

It is also a great idea to mix in some CTAs in your posts. These don't have to be overly promotional. For instance, once you have created some informative infographic for your website/blog and wish to drive traffic to it, try including a dynamic CTA such as “Check out this cool infographic – especially the 4”. The idea is to do more than what most businesses do. Go beyong posting the URL on social media and hoping potential clients will check it out.

4. Less is More


Most businesses want to be active on all social media channels. This is not the right move unless you have a recruited a dedicated social media team or decided to outsource social media to a reputed digital agency. So it is better to be a star of 2-3 channels than playing a mediocre on all of them. With less of accounts to handle, you can message your followers in a timely manner and manage them. Faster replies will help you engage more and even create lifelong brand supporters.

5. No Social Media Strategy


Having a strong social media strategy will help you avoid mistakes. Having a strong strategy will help you build a positive social media presence. It should have a measurable goal, such as acquiring over 75-100 people to subscribe to email list. Prepare a list of the type of content you wish to share, your target audience, their interest, etc. to make the strategy a success. It  is also important to know how to deal with various engagements including comments, queries (positive and negative).

6. Are You Selling Too Much? Too Little?


Talking about your brand only in social media doesn't work. The main focus should be shifted to what your consumers care about. You must share content related to this. The content should be valuable and highly informational. Also aim for more than just getting maximum likes. Having a large audience doesn’t necessarily mean you can convert them. Your calls-to-actions should guide audience to a landing page or subscribe to a newsletter.

7. Sharing The Wrong Way


Most people believe in sharing too much or too little which creates problems. Although it is important to keep your account is active, avoid spamming your audience. Knowing the right amount of posts each day is a tricky process. One good way to start off with this is to have a close look at what your competition is doing. In case, they are doing well, simply have them as a reference. Once you find the ideal number of times to share content, know the right time to share it. Sharing at the wrong time means things may not reach your target audience at all. This kind of sharing does not make any sense. A number of tools can be used to know when your audience is on. Look for some free tools online.

8. Non Existent On Social Media


Remember that your audience wants to relate to real people. So make them feel like there are real people behind their account. So make sure you use an appropriate voice and speak just like your clients do. Engaging with the audience is key to success in social media. Instant replies to comments is important.

Strong social media presence will help your business grow and thrive. Make sure it is done right and stay away from the above listed 8 mistakes.

3 comments

Hi,

Awesome thoughts which is extremely necessary for a brand to give better insight that turns more people to a website, create a fast conversion, massive audience reach, ideas that help brand progress much to develop the new skill set in social research etc. Do you think your brand not having that power to put attention in front of the crowd? Speak to expert marketing group Linsad.com.my for more
socal media marketing
ideas and knowledge.

All the social websites are very good and very useful if you use in the right way. Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Instagram, etc has helped people to increase their business and connect to people. Find more discussion regarding this topic at our Question and Answer Website.

Thanks for the warning!
social media marketing is indeed tricky and I'll try to avoid these mistakes in the future

Thanks.....
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