Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid

As a digital marketing specialist who’s been using social media since the MySpace days, I can safely say that I’ve seen my fair share of fantastic social media marketing campaigns. I’ve also seen some of the worst. But unlike horror films and east-coast pizza, where even the bad ones are still half-decent, failed social media campaigns have very few redeeming qualities. Don’t worry, your digital marketing pals here at K2 Analytics came up with a few ways that you can avoid social media campaign flops. Here are the top social media marketing mistakes to avoid if you want to grow your online reach!

Not Hiring a Dedicated Social Media Manager

One of the biggest challenges that businesses face when it comes to handling their own social media in-house is not dedicating the necessary resources to their social media efforts. Social media marketing is a full-time job if you want it done correctly and this means that you need to have a person whose whole job description is generating leads and sales for you on social media.

Your social media managers should create monthly outlines for upcoming posts, create graphic content, do keyword and hashtag research, create and manage paid social media advertisements, and so much more.

Failure to Map a Social Media Marketing Strategy

My old soccer coach taught me to live by the 7Ps: Proper Planning and Preparation Prevents Piss and Poor Performance. That’s a fun way to say that failure to plan is the best way to fail at something. If you want your social media marketing campaigns to be successful, you have to put in the work that gives you the best possible tools for success.

Ask yourself:

• Who is your ideal customer?
• What social media platforms are your ideal customers using?
• What tone of voice should you use?
• When (and how often) are your posts going out?
• Did you use an automated posting tool?

Not Understanding Who Your Target Audience Is

To have a successful social media post that gets a ton of organic engagement, you need 3 things: (1) a clear target audience, (2) a message that resonates with that audience that was (3) delivered to them on the platform that they prefer.

That last part is important. Understanding your target audience requires you to understand which social media platforms are more likely to engage with and which platforms they simply scroll through to feel preoccupied. One indicator of this could be the average age of Facebook users vs Instagram, Tik Tok, or Snap Chat.

Being a Faceless Corporation With No Personal Touch

There’s a fine line between being professional on social media and your brand not having any real personality. This is a particularly easy habit to fall into if when you use automation tools to schedule all of your posts in advance.

Social media marketing works really well when your followers know that there is a person behind the account because it feels more personable. If you’re worried about becoming too informal on social media, create a social media persona that’s behind the account and let create a personality for them.

Ignoring or Deleting Negative Comments

Finally, the biggest mistake businesses can make on social media is to get tangled up in the negativity that is on the internet. The internet, and social media as a whole, can be incredibly toxic places if you let yourself get tangled up in it.

Every now and then you will receive a negative comment, complaint, or rude follower who just wants to argue. When this happens, rather than responding with the same negative attitude or ignoring it altogether, throw on your best customer service voice and hit ‘em with the old, “We’re sorry to hear that you had a negative experience. Can you DM us so we can better assist you?”

Handle the conversation in private and remember that your social media account represents your business on the internet where everyone can see how you handle these situations.