5 Social Media Marketing Mistakes

I thought we were past this way of thinking, but you’d be shocked at the number of people who believe it, but if you believe social media is not right for your demographic or your industry, you are wrong. It’s somehow still a common misconception that social media is only for teenagers and the tech-savvy. That is no longer the case. 

For example, one study has shown that the fastest-growing demographic on Twitter is the 55-64-year age bracket and that the fastest-growing demographic on Facebook is 45-54-year-olds. You will find other demographics are well-represented too. Social media has penetrated all layers of our society.  If you manage to put together an effective social media strategy ahead of the competition, you will have an upper hand.

Social Media Marketing can be a colossal waste of time without a proper plan of action. Many companies fall into this trap of sporadically posting things to their social media accounts, sharing some of their content here and there, and trying to attract followers or fans. That’s not social media marketing; that’s having no plan.

Social media marketing must be approached the same way you approach your planning for any marketing campaign. You should have specific goals, budgets, and a concrete plan of action that outlines what you are trying to accomplish, how you will achieve your goal, how you will measure results, and what resources you will need to allocate.

Addressing the audience in a way that’s inconsistent with the traditions of the social network is ineffective and counter-productive. You probably wouldn’t speak Spanish in Germany, yet many businesses make the mistake of speaking the wrong language on social media.

Every social network has its own customs, language, audience, and type of content.  For your efforts to be effective, you need to account for differences between social networks. It is important to learn how people communicate on all of the social platforms you participate in.

How embarrassing would it be to create a video for TikTok, but then post the same one as a standard IG post so you could save time on content creation? Pretty embarrassing considering that the aspect ratios are different. Now, that doesn’t mean you can’t reuse some content, but it still needs to be tweaked to be effective for each platform.

Your social media updates are useless if no one cares, shares, or responds to them. Your posts and content should be designed to elicit conversations with your audience. If you don’t get these reactions, your overall strategy and the content should be revisited.

When a person responds or comments, be sure to reply. Every comment a customer posts, whether positive or negative, presents an opportunity to communicate with the customer directly. Be friendly and personable; after all, this is what social media is about. Luckily for you, we’ve already gone over how to engage with your social media followers.

Having thousands of random followers who don’t represent your ideal customers and have little to contribute will simply not produce desirable results. You want to attract and engage prospects, peers, or professionals who share the same views and interests and who will be instrumental in the success of your marketing efforts. By building and expanding your network, you will gain better access to prospects and other professionals and will increase the exposure for your messages and your content.

And make your interactions meaningful! Social media marketing is about adding value to a relationship.  You should set aside the time to reach out and write personalized messages, engage in discussions, and share and comment on someone else’s content instead of just pushing yours down everyone’s throat.  Treat these relationships the same way as your in-person ones. Adding value to these relationships will make others more likely to pay attention to what you have to say.