Five common social media marketing pitfalls

So you’ve made a step in the right direction, and set up social media profiles for your business. You post content as and when you find it, get a few likes here and there, but something isn’t quite right. You don’t feel like you’re getting much back from the effort you’re putting in.

If this sounds like you, you might be making these five common social media marketing mistakes:

1. Wrong platform

There are a multitude of social media networks out there, but that doesn’t mean your business has to be on every one of them. Don’t spread yourself too thinly, pick a few platforms that are right for your business and concentrate on getting them right. If you’re a legal firm for example, you don’t need to be on Instagram, but you do need to be on LinkedIn and Twitter. On the other hand, Instagram and Facebook would be the perfect fit for local cafés and restaurants. If you’re not sure which platforms to choose, have a look what your competition are doing and where your target audience spend most of their time.

2. Inconsistent content

You’re so busy concentrating on other aspects of your business that finding social media content is a bit of an afterthought. You might spend a couple of hours a week finding content, but have no overarching content strategy. You find stuff, post it randomly and then wait another three weeks before posting anything else. Yes, it takes time and yes, it takes effort, but all you have to do is prepare a few quality pieces each week, post consistently and post when your fans are most active.

3. No advertising budget

You post awesome content on a regular basis, but no one is engaging with it. The internet is a big place, and it’s easy for your posts to get lost amongst the 1.3 million pieces of content on Facebook every minute of every day. Gone are the days of organic reach on social media, as less than 2% of your Facebook fans actually see your posts in their newsfeed. Therefore, if you want to see some ROI from social, you must have an advertising budget. Something as low as $500 a month can really boost engagement on your page, traffic to your website and increase leads or sales. Whilst posting content organically on social media is a good start, advertising allows you to pin point your target audience and ensure that the right people are seeing what you have to offer.

4. Too much self-promotion

Social media differs greatly from traditional methods of marketing and advertising. Whilst selling is a hugely important aspect of your business, people don’t spend time on social media to be sold to. Users browse social media sites to be entertained, engaged and inspired. Give your followers something to share with their friends and to start a conversation. Once you’ve built a loyal following, your audience will be more responsive when you do post a sales message.

5. Impatience

Don’t give up because you’re not seeing results straight away. It takes time and effort to create a content strategy, build an audience of engaged followers that trust your brand and target them with relevant content and ads. Be persistent, stick with it and trust me, your efforts will be rewarded.

If any of the above sounds familiar, i’d love to chat with you about how I can help make your social media marketing a success. Get in touch at epikdigital.com.au

– Giselle Boxer