While social media is an excellent place for businesses to expand their reach and become recognizable, companies don’t always do what is best for their needs. Fortunately, Peppermonkey Media is here to break down seven of the most common social media marketing mistakes to show businesses what not to do if they want to succeed with their efforts on social media.
Using social media marketing to your business’s advantage is great for increasing brand awareness, maintaining a strong online presence, and having potential clients and customers find you. Read about social media mistakes to avoid, then book your free digital strategy session with us!
1. Focusing on Quantity Over Quality
Social media is a powerful tool to use to market your business, but you must focus on making good content that you’re proud to share. Quality content, rather than putting out posts, images, videos, and more for the sake of posting, can have a much better impact on your audience. It also appears obvious when you’re simply rushing to put a post out that isn’t your best, so taking a little bit of extra time and effort can help you.
2. Not Staying Current
If you want your business to do well on social media, you need to stay current. You should share and provide content that is relevant today, not several years ago. Keep your posts and pages fresh with new ideas and trends that are relevant to your business.
Potential customers and clients may leave your business behind for another if you appear outdated. Take the time to research and get up to date.
3. Sharing Stories Without Intention or Impact
One of the worst social media marketing mistakes we see is a business sharing stories left and right or ones that don’t help their business. Stories, whether on Instagram or Facebook, can help businesses interact with their followers and clients and encourage engagement. However, some businesses share stories at random or in a way that negatively affects them.
Responding to a mention on stories is key, as is holding polls, hosting giveaways, and taking questions. Not only does this show your followers that you’re friendly, active, and responsive, but it also encourages them to interact. Be careful of the stories you share and consider the value of the story and what it adds to your page first.
Staying within your niche and posting things that relate to your business are good. You can encourage a call to action with stories too. Gather data through your stories to better understand your target audience and followers (hopefully, they intersect!), learning about their demographics.
4. Posting Dull, Non-Engaging Content
Boring content prevents followers from becoming long-term, happy customers and clients. If followers are bored, they’ll skip through your content and move on to something else. You should be creative and post content that encourages them to come back for more in the future.
You can include links and an appealing call to action to make your posts interesting. Don’t forget to connect with your audience! You can keep your branding throughout your content and cohesiveness by using the same font, text size, types of graphics, colors, and more for brand awareness.
5. Impersonal Interactions
Having a strong social media presence means nothing when your business appears unapproachable and robotic, which is one of the largest social media marketing mistakes. Human interaction makes people want to engage with the brands and businesses they follow. A business that cares about their customers and their needs is essential.
While many businesses use some form of automation, you shouldn’t use it in a way that will lose followers. Replying to comments, mentions, and engaging in multiple ways is even better when it feels like there’s a real human behind the screen. Listen to feedback, good and bad, to see what people are saying about your business and learn about ways you might improve.
6. Operating Without a Marketing Strategy
Many businesses cannot identify their target audience, nor do they have a social media strategy in place. Why exhaust your efforts and post with no direction when you’re unsure what you’re doing? You should have clear objectives for your business, create a budget, and take relevant steps to try to achieve your goals.
Seeing what worked for you in the past and what did not can help you move forward. Taking your strategy in a fresh, new direction could be exactly what your business needs to get the growth and engagement you want. Use data in your favor and digital marketing tools to track and monitor your campaign, identifying areas to improve or focus less on.
7. Posting Too Much or Too Little
The ideal frequency of posting depends on the social media platform you’re using, but knowing which applies to each can be tremendously helpful. The current recommendations for some of the most popular social media sites and best business practices are as follows:
- Instagram: 3-5 times weekly
- Instagram Stories: Twice daily
- Facebook: Once or twice daily
- Google My Business: Once weekly
- TikTok: 3-5 times weekly
- Twitter: 2-3 times daily
Some other pages businesses use include LinkedIn, Pinterest, and more. You don’t typically find businesses on all of them, unless perhaps they are some of the largest companies in the world.
While being on social media platforms can aid your business, you do not need to create a page on every single one. This is ineffective and can waste time, as focusing on making content and being active on a few pages yields more favorable results. Remember, quality over quantity!
Find Your Social Media Marketing Strategy with the Help of Peppermonkey Media
Peppermonkey Media is a digital marketing agency that helps businesses improve their efforts of lead and customer growth, helping avoid SEO mistakes along the way. Now that we’ve explained some of the most common social media marketing mistakes, we can assist you in creating a social media marketing plan to take your business a step further and achieve your goals. Schedule your digital strategy session with us today
