It’s true to say that social media can be a vital asset for any business owner. Business owners like social media for one very important reason – it’s free! It’s true, you can set up a full campaign across social media without spending a single penny. As well as this, it’s far-reaching. Depending on however many people are following you, you have the potential to reach an audience of hundreds, thousands or even millions. This marketing option is scalable too, and if you do want to pay for it, you can fit the campaign around any business budget. Sounds great but if you are going to use social media, you must make sure that you’re using it correctly. Here are some of the key mistakes that you must absolutely avoid at all costs.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By garagestock
Failing To – Choose Wisely
This isn’t just a film slogan, it’s a very smart piece of advice. You might think that the best option is to make sure that you are utilizing every social media profile available. If you have a truly unlimited budget, it certainly could be. But in most cases, your marketing budget will be rather limited. You’ll have to find a way to cope with this, and one option would be to focus on a single social network and push the majority of your content or marketing through it.
But how do you decide which social media is right for your business? Well, there’s an easy way to work this out. Just look at the top influencers in your industry and check where the weight of their campaign is. If it’s on Twitter, that’s where you need to be. If it’s on Facebook, the same rule follows. You might be tempted to break away and try something different. But, if the majority of your target customers are on a different social network, that’s where you should be.
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By Orange Vectors
You can also think about which social network suits your particular service or product. If it’s highly visual, you definitely want to make sure that you have some sort of Instagram present or potentially Pinterest. A brightly colored profile with lots of pretty pictures can be all you need to make sure that interest in your business grows through the roof.
Struggling To – Use Pictures Like A Pro
If you are using images as part of your social media campaign, you need to make sure that they are being utilized in the right way. This could be a huge opportunity, but you need to take the right steps. First, if you’re showing off your product do everything that you can to make it look stunning. Appearance does matter both offline and in the store. That’s why it’s worth investing in the right service to print custom labels for products that really stand out. These can be shown off in pictures and images across social media. Do make sure when you layout the image you either use a clear background or something that isn’t going to distract from the product itself. You need them to be captivated by what you’re selling. As well as this, do make sure that your custom label is clearly on display. You shouldn’t miss out on the chance to highlight, your brand and your logo.
Forgetting To – Build A Recognized Brand
These days, it’s quite common to have several different marketing services at work behind the scenes in your business. There is a problem here though. With so many people working on your brand, it can create various different tones and formats. As such, it can be difficult for a member of your audience to recognize a piece of content as marketing for your business.
Also Read
Shutterstock Licensed Photo – By aurielaki
How do you avoid this? Either, make sure that you invest in the services of one marketing company. Or, make sure that you write and build a solid, easy to understand, marketing policy. This will ensure that tone and style remains consistent across your brand. It’s a great way to make sure that buzz around your business builds. Every piece of content you release will automatically be associated with your business.
Forgetting To – Provide Recognition
You might be sharing other people’s content, tweets, images or graphics through your social media. That’s fine, and it’s a great way to add quality content to your profiles. It doesn’t matter that it’s not yours as long as you reference and mention who did create it. If you’re dealing with UGC, this could be one of your target customers, and you definitely don’t want to annoy them. If it’s another company, it’s also worth referencing them because then you can attract the interest of their customers. It’s not just a matter of courtesy. In many ways, it is business common sense. But it could also save you from some bad buzz online.
Failing To Recognize It As – More Than A Marketing Tool
Don’t think for a moment that social media should just be used for marketing and promotion. While this is certainly an important aspect, self-promotion is just one part of the puzzle. Indeed, many marketers believe that only twenty percent of your content should be self-promotion. So, what should the rest be? Well, you should be focusing on providing a lot of content that helps your customer base, providing them with useful information. You might also want to use social media to connect with customers on another level. Ultimately, you need to work on building relationships with them rather than just focusing on sales. Do this, and you’ll earn loyalty and respect. Both are highly valuable on the current market.
Focusing On – Too Much Video
Finally, as reports emerge that the relevance and value of video has been greatly exaggerated, it’s worth taking a step back and thinking about how much content you’re releasing fits into this category. Don’t abandon video completely but do focus on other areas as well. Remember, infographics can be just as appealing to customers, and that makes them incredibly useful to you.
We hope this helps you avoid some of the major marketing mistakes you can make on social media.
