Avoiding These 5 Mistakes Is Crucial for Social Media Marketing Success

Social media has revolutionised the way we all communicate, and that includes businesses. 90-percent of all marketers report that social media has increased the exposure of their businesses.

But it isn’t enough simply to have a social media presence. Getting your digital marketing wrong can damage the credibility of your business. Here we take a look at some of the most common social media marketing mistakes, and how you can avoid them.

1. Posting the Same Content Across all Social Networks

Social networks are not all created equal. Each platform attracts different user demographics, and therefore the people that use them will be interested in different types of content.

For example:

• Facebook is the most popular social network, with over 2 billion active monthly users. 83-percent of all online women and 75-percent of all online men have Facebook profiles. The platform attracts all age groups, but the majority of users are aged 18 to 49. Due to the generic nature of Facebook, users are interested in a wide variety of content. 62-percent of marketers rate Facebook as the most important social network for marketing.
• Instagram is used almost exclusively for photo and video content, and 90-percent of its 700 million users are aged under 35. This makes it the ideal platform for reaching your target audience if your products have a lot of visual appeal and are aimed at younger consumers.
• LinkedIn has 106 million monthly users. While only 31-percent of online men and 27-percent of online women use LinkedIn, it is used by 45-percent of people who make US$45,000 a year or more. Therefore, it is a good platform to choose for B2B marketing and sharing in-depth information that is likely to prove useful in people’s careers.
• Twitter users are the most likely to click on links—they account for a huge 92-percent of all interactions with tweets.
• YouTube is now classed as the second largest social network, and only provides video content. Its 1.5 billion active users watch 2 million videos on YouTube every single minute, so it’s the perfect platform for sharing video content, whether for business or for leisure.

It’s important to research your target market when you are devising your social media strategy. Doing so helps ensure you are using the appropriate channels and sharing the right types of content to attract potential customers. Downplaying this advice can lead to unnecessary and wasted social media effort and spending.

2. Being Too Promotional

Content marketing differs from other types of marketing in that it’s about building awareness of your brand by offering value to consumers in other ways, such as by providing them with useful information about your industry to help them make informed purchase decisions, rather than overtly promoting your own brand. Social media users are savvy consumers, and 76-percent of them don’t trust advertising content, viewing it as “very exaggerated” or “somewhat exaggerated.”

Instead of advertising, social media users want to form connections with brands through meaningful, informative content. Facebook, for example, ranks posts in each user’s News Feed based on how relevant it thinks each post is likely to be for that person, so it’s important to think about what content is likely to be most useful to your target audience if you want maximum brand visibility.

Don’t make exaggerated claims or overdo the promotional language—it’s worth bearing in mind that 86-percent of social media users rate honesty as the behaviour they most want to see from brands online.

3. Not Interacting Enough

The whole point of social media is that it is social. Users interact with brands on social media in a similar way to how they interact with their friends—liking, sharing, and commenting on content, and sending direct messages. If you want to build good relationships with your followers, it’s important to reply and participate in discussions around your brand, so your customers feel they are being listened to. It’s worth remembering that being responsive is the behaviour most likely to make social media users purchase from a brand.

Quick responses are expected by social media users—22-percent of Facebook users and 29-percent of Twitter users expect brands to respond to them within 24 hours, so it’s not enough simply to post your content and forget about it. It’s important to get into the habit of checking your social media accounts every day and taking the time to respond to comments and messages, otherwise you can harm your brand’s reputation in terms of responsiveness and customer service.

4. Concentrating Heavily on Trending Topics

While highly topical posts can give your following a boost by going viral, it’s likely to fade quickly, along with many of the people who followed you because of it. Evergreen content—content that will still be relevant in months and years to come—is likely to keep your business prominent for longer, as social media users will keep sharing it.

Evergreen content gives you a better opportunity to let your followers know what your business is about and what it stands for, and is more likely to attract loyal followers who value information that is likely to stay relevant for a long time. This builds lasting relationships with your customer base, and establishes you as a trusted source of information within your industry.

5. Posting Only One Type of Content

Users like variety, and it’s important to know that different types of content appeal to different users. As such, by sticking to one type of content all the time you are restricting the audience you’re likely to appeal to. If you only ever post written content, you should consider using other formats, too. Statistics show that four times as many consumers would prefer to watch a video than read text on the same topic. This is also true for 59-percent of executives.

A lot of users also like to feel more involved with the brands they follow. Posting interactive content can be a good way of achieving this—53-percent of social media marketers now use quizzes, competitions, and interactive infographics as part of their marketing strategies.

By avoiding these common mistakes it’s truly possible to use social media to achieve awareness for your brand and build long-lasting, trusted relationships with your followers. Set out with a clear aim of what you want to achieve, make a detailed plan, and remember to think about what your audience wants at all times—this way, you’ll have a better chance of not only using social media to promote your business but also successfully employing digital marketing to achieve an awesome online presence.

In need of expert advice and assistance in digital marketing (and its various parts)? The hardworking bees of Curate Bee are here for you! Contact us today and let us help you make your online presence more awesome!