When you first launch your business into the vast world of social media, it’s exciting. Getting your first business link and seeing your number of followers rising and people engaging with your posts is strangely satisfying.
However, what happened next? A lull in activity? A drop in engagement? Perhaps even a complete loss of ideas on what to post? Here are several simple mistakes that you can easily avoid in social media marketing – allowing you to focus on what will ultimately work for you.
Solely self-promotion
Social media marketing is like free advertising, right? In reality, this is something of a yes and no scenario.
The biggest mistake businesses make in social media marketing is focusing entirely on promotion. True, the ‘hard sell’ philosophy still has its place in the world (think brands that sponsor TV shows and advertise up to four times in a half-hour slot), but social media isn’t the place for it.
Think about it. If you opened a social app right now and saw a promotional post, then encountered the same post or a variation of it later, would you keep clicking? Fast Company has published many different tried-and-tested social media ratios for self-promotion, which will help you to avoid being a one-trick pony that people will all-too-soon decide to disengage with.
Sporadic activity
Almost in complete contrast, however, are the many social media accounts that remain inactive for long periods.
Fundamentally, social media is about being… well… social. This means regular updates, sharing information and getting into conversations with others.
Simply logging in every so often and announcing ‘We Did This’ isn’t particularly engaging.
Thankfully, by applying one of the ratios in the above link to your own social media channels, you can get the right blend of promotional, conversational and informative content going on a regular basis.
Business Matters actually cites posting regularly as its number 1 ‘Do’ in social media marketing in 2020 – so, don’t fall into the retrogressive habit of only being occasionally social.
Excessive appearances
In contrast again, however (there’s something of a pattern emerging here!), you can also spread your efforts too thinly. Aside from Facebook, which is an essential social media platform for most businesses, you may not need to be present on many other channels.
Do you need a business-to-business presence on LinkedIn, for instance? Do you need to be adding short ‘story’ videos to Snapchat and Instagram? Not everything is for everyone (or every business, for that matter!).
Managing multiple social media channels is time-consuming, and can be rather confusing at times, too. Unless your business genuinely benefits from being present on specific channels, there’s no need to persist with them.
In fact, by doing so, you could find that you end up with several inactive channels, rather than one or two engaging and productive ones.
If this is where you are right now with your social media marketing efforts, find out more about how to succeed by visiting Climb Online – dedicated experts in online success and growth.
……………………………………………………………………
Managing the CX demands of 5 generations … new eBook – TheMarketingblog https://t.co/8jNKUb1aX4
— Will Corry (@slievemore) November 22, 2019
New research : How to leverage next-gen CCM – TheMarketingblog https://t.co/cfnTuNMOrO pic.twitter.com/66Epnscrvh
— Will Corry (@slievemore) April 10, 2019