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Do you make the same social media marketing mistakes as many business owners and marketers?
If you do, you could lose massive opportunities to engage your audiences, ruining your social media marketing efforts’ chances for success.
According to survey data, 90% of 16 to 64-year-old internet users actively contribute to and engage with social platforms.
That’s a lot of potential customers your business could miss out on if you fall into the same pitfalls that cause many social media marketing efforts to fail.
The solution? Know the common mistakes that can ruin your social media engagement efforts.
Understanding what to watch out for helps you avoid making the same mistakes and learn the top tips for social media marketing to succeed.
Start with the five common social media marketing mistakes below.
1. Not developing a social media marketing plan
Every successful marketing endeavor starts with one thing: A solid plan.
While winging your posts can engage your audiences (sometimes), you’ll have more success with a comprehensive social media marketing plan.
After all, not having a plan is like building a house without a blueprint. You won’t know where to start, and your initial efforts can crumble anytime.
You need a social media marketing plan, so your strategy doesn’t become inefficient and ineffective.
It allows you to understand which audiences to target and the types of posts and elements, such as Instagram Reels hashtags, that drive views and engagement (among other things).
A plan can also help ensure that your social media marketing initiatives align with your goals.
Start your plan by setting a list of objectives and creating a budget proposal.
Include a plan of action that outlines the following:
- What you want your social media marketing efforts to achieve
- How you will track and measure y\our results
- The resources you might need, including a comprehensive content writing playbook to guide your social media content creation
2. Marketing to everyone
Not all Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and other social media platform users are your potential customers.
That said, avoid marketing and promoting to general audiences since not all of them will likely (or ever) be interested in your products or buy from you.
For instance, you’ll waste your social media marketing efforts and resources if you promote products such as security testing tools to audiences looking for beauty products.
Determine your ideal audience—people who are likely to buy your products and services.
Doing so focuses your social media marketing efforts, helping you target the right people.
Create buyer personas (or refine your current ones).
Use Facebook Audience Insights
The tool allows you to aggregate audience information on Facebook users, such as page likes, demographics, purchase activity, FB usage, location, and language.
Image source: facebook.com.
Audience Insights lets you view this information on your Facebook general audience and people connected to your event or page.
You’ll also get this FB user information in custom audiences you created (an audience consisting of your current customers).
3. Posting inconsistently
Failing to post social media content consistently can hurt your chances of getting your brand in front of audiences with shopping and buying intent.
Plus, not posting content regularly can cause your brand to miss opportunities to engage your potential customers continuously.
The trick is to churn out social media content regularly to maintain momentum with your engaged audiences.
Set up a content posting schedule to help keep your brand top of mind among your prospects, whether you sell women’s jewelry or digital products and services such as a cheap dedicated server.
Use social media management tools with content scheduling and auto-publishing features. It can streamline your content production and posting.
Also, create various content types to keep your social media posts fresh, unique, and engaging.
You don’t want to keep posting the same content type over and over since this can get old fast.
Additionally, know the optimal posting times for each social media platform.
Doing so helps ensure you post the right content to the appropriate audiences at the best time for maximum engagement.
4. Failing to humanize your brand
Most people don’t want to interact with a faceless brand.
If you keep your audience interactions only for business, you’re not likely to connect with your social media audiences better and boost engagement.
Humanize your brand since customers will likely relate better and become more loyal to your company when you show your human side.
Add a human touch to social media audience interactions with these tips:
- Showcase the people behind your brand. Create content about the people who work for and with your company.
For example, you could share short Instagram Reels showing stories about the people who pack the boxes, supply your raw materials, make the final product, and talk to your customers.
Fresh-frozen culinary ingredient supplier SupHerb Farms showcases their field team and what they do in an IG Reel.
Image source: instagram.com.
- Don’t make your content all about selling your products and services. Avoid being one of those companies stuck in an eternal sales pitch. It can turn off potential customers.
Adopt the 3:1 ratio in your social media content strategy.
For instance, if you run a digital marketing company, share three posts about the benefits of optimizing online content, one post promoting your services and how customers can buy SEO articles from you.
Humanize your brand to provide more genuine and personal interactions with your social media audiences.
The more memorable and “human” your audience interactions, the better you can engage your audience.
Track and analyze your social media posts designed to humanize your brand. Develop a solid content tracking approach to assess your content’s performance.
5. Ignoring analytics
One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to ignore your social media analytics.
If you do, you’ll miss getting valuable insights about your target audiences and social media campaign performance.
Leverage social analytics to learn more about the demographics of users who interact with your content.
For instance, Instagram analytics helps you:
- Monitor profile visits and content interactions
- Track follower growth
- See where your posts appeared in the IG feed
- Gain insights into how your audiences interact with your posts
- Keep track of your engagement rates.
You can use this data to inform your Instagram social media content strategy.
Gather the same data and insights across your social media marketing channels to help improve your current tactics and drive significant results.
You’ll be equipped with the right information to make better data-driven decisions while eliminating guesswork in your social media marketing efforts.
Know the social media marketing pitfalls to avoid to succeed
There are no one-size-fits-all formulas or perfect strategies to achieve social media marketing success.
However, you’ll be better equipped to succeed when you know which social media marketing mistakes to avoid and what you should do instead.