Maintaining a social media presence can produce many benefits for a company, including increasing brand awareness and industry credibility, as well as generating leads and website traffic. In order to obtain the greatest benefits from social media, you should first develop a strategy for utilizing social media according to the goals that you wish to achieve. In addition to aligning your activity on social media to this strategy, here are a few additional tips:
- Post content that is both relevant and interesting to your customers
- Post regularly, but don’t overwhelm your followers with a constant stream of updates
- Curate original content on a blog and direct your followers there. Ideally this would be on your company’s website.
Unfortunately, not all marketers follow these best practices. Here are a few classic examples of common social media marketing mistakes, followed by ways each could improve.
1. Overwhelming Omar
He posts over 20 random updates on Facebook every day, but is surprised that his fan numbers keep falling.
How could he improve? Omar should step back and evaluate his strategy. By sending so many messages through his Facebook page, his fans are probably becoming annoyed and unliking his page. By being more strategic, he can send fewer, more effective messages to his followers, increasing the likelihood for interaction and fan growth.
2. Ingrid the Ignorer
Her customers try to interact with her brand on social media, but she never responds back so they eventually stop.
How could she improve? Ingrid should acknowledge her fans, even if it’s a simple “Thanks!” for re-tweeting her or commenting on a Facebook status. She should also remember to monitor her sites regularly so that she won’t miss any of these interactions and be able to respond in a timely manner.
3. Oblivious Olivia
She doesn’t believe that any of her potential customers are on social media, so she doesn’t want to waste any of her time or money marketing there.
How could she improve? Olivia should do research before she draws conclusions. With the large majority of people of social networks, there is a large possibility that her customers are there too. Another good idea would be to do a quick search to see if her brand is being mentioned anywhere in social media. Once she has this data, she will be able to make an educated decision as to which social networks would be best to join, as well as an effective strategy to reach these customers.
4. Rick the Recycler
Everything he posts on Facebook is an article from another source. Most of his tweets are all verbatim retweets from leading industry experts.
How could he improve? Rick should focus on curating his own library of content and draw his social media audience there. This will also drive traffic to his website, which provides additional opportunities for sales or lead generation. He can still draw from other sources, but shouldn’t go overboard with it.
Do you need help with your social media marketing or are looking to put together a strategy to avoid these common social media marketing mistakes? Let Launch help! And be sure to follow us on Twitter and Facebook to stay up-to-date with the latest B2B marketing tips and trends.
There are no comments