Social media is a great way for businesses to keep in touch with their customers. It is also a great way to get your name out there and introduce new customers to your brand. However there are mistakes a lot of businesses make that stifle the growth that can come from social media. Here are a few things to avoid.
Picking quantity over quality. At first glance having a lot of followers or “likes” on your page looks very good. The problem is what if those are empty followers or “likes”. You want to have the type of people that will be enthusiastic about your product or service, people that are willing to share it with their friends, to be interactive on your pages with comments and “likes”. So instead of focusing on just gathering any and everyone to like or follow, focus on getting the right people to like or follow and the rest will come together.
Random posting. A huge part of social media is figuring out when you should be posting content, you want to do it at a time that will allow you to reach the most amount of followers. You also want to be consistent with your posting, posting too much is spamming and posting too little won’t allow you to establish a base with your followers. It’s important to do the research and figure out the best time and content to put out there for your followers so it is engaging enough to turn into sales.
Not creating different content for different platforms. Although you may have loyal fans that follow you on all forms of social media, odds are that they follow you on just one. An Instagram follower isn’t going to necessarily be interested in the same content as your Facebook follower or your Google + follower, etc. You want to create unique content for each platform, especially for those that follow all your forms.
Not being interactive. The point of social media isn’t just marketing, it is to interact with your customers. So not responding to comments and questions is a huge mistake. You want to show your customers that you are there for them and it will in turn make them more loyal customers. You want to respond as often as possible, it doesn’t have to be right away of course but you want to do it no matter what. It will build trust with old clients and has the potential to make new clients through that trust.
Juggling too many. There are so many forms of social media out there and you might think you need to be on all of them but you don’t! It’s important to figure out which form works best for your business and your demographic. That way you can use the platform that will be the most useful for your brand and master it. Picking one or two right off the bat and creating an identity is key, otherwise you could spread yourself too thin and miss the mark with the people you’re trying to reach out to.
Sometimes it’s just as valuable to know what you shouldn’t do as it is to understand what you should. So the points in this article are not all to consider, but they should get you started in the right direction.
If you can keep your personal or company profile free of these pitfalls, you’ll be well on your way. That being said, dive into anything new on the internet without fear. No one can tell you what will help you until you try it.
You can produce more interactions and social signals, such as likes and shares, when you work with CXC Digital to develop and implement your social media content marketing plan. These features make it possible for you to communicate with a larger online audience.
