Social media is a great way to stay up to date and build a presence online. If you are a brand or business however you need to take a more considered approach. This needs to draw people in so eventually they buy your product or services.
Below, we go over 5 common social media mistakes to avoid so that you can present yourself in the best way possible.
Not having a social media marketing plan
Not having a marketing plan in place doesn’t bode well when trying to push out content consistently.
Do you post consistently?
Do you vary your posts?
Do you use all the features on the platform effectively?
Pre-planning what you post, when and for what feature i.e main feed, story or highlight,
This means that your posts are more considered, of a higher quality and part of a larger plan, rather than a random post you took to minutes to put together. Once you have a strategy in place it can alleviate pressure especially when you are busy, you will be able to push out pre-approved content that aligns with your brand/ business without even thinking about it.
Not defining your target audience
Do you know who you’re talking to and who engages in your post?
If you ignore these aspects when posting you are hurting yourself.
Tailoring your content specifically to your audience increases engagement, (follows, shares and likes) which can be converted into sales. Many social media platforms have an analytic feature that allows you to see who your audience are, where they come from, their age, their gender and their interaction. With this information, you can start to build a customer profile and produce content specifically aimed at the different segments of your audience. Use these tools to your advantage, you’re able to see what posts and stories had a high engagement, so it can act as a guide to the types of content you should keep sharing and what you need to work on.
Failing to engage in conversations
Don’t forget about the SOCIAL in social media. These platforms are an extension of you and can be a more relaxed way of engaging with your audience. Engage in conversation, have polls, answer questions, reply to comments. Be active and not just a page. The most successful brands and businesses use their social platform to further conversations with their audiences, this helps to build data and get feedback almost instantly. This is very valuable information and can inform other aspects of the business.
Promoting yourself a lot
Over promotion and a sell sell sell mentality can be damaging, people don’t want to be sold to constantly. Vary your content so that it incorporates audience centred posts such as competitions and giveaways, who you are and what you stand for/ what causes you to support and cultural posts that shows you pay attention to what’s going on around you and the community you are trying to engage with. All these points will help your audience to build a sense of trust in you and a sense of loyalty. Selling and promotion should be one of many styles of posts.
Treating all social media platforms the same
There is a big difference between Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat, TikTok and Pinterest and the audiences on each platform. So that is why you tailor your content so that it is appropriate to the platform it’s on. Of course, it is important to have a consistent image, but tailoring content specifically to the platform and its features allows you to utilise it to the fullest. If you replicate the same content on every platform your not making the most of the specific platforms feature or understanding the vast difference in the audiences, which makes the brand/ business seem out of touch
We have a great Marketing team that can help and support all your social media needs, get in touch if you would like to have a consultation, we would love to hear from you!