Social media platforms, such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram, have come a long way. Earlier, they were just used by people to stay connected with each other. However, now, these platforms are used by organisations, big and small, to market their products and/or services, spread the word about their business or keep in touch with their target audience.
Social media marketing (SMM), in a nutshell, holds crucial importance when it comes to making an online presence. Many companies now hire top strategists, marketers and reputable agencies when it comes to making SMM campaigns. Some companies, particularly small-sized, tend to do this on their own due to budget constraints and end up making certain mistakes that do nothing but waste their resources.
Some of the most common SMM mistakes people are prone to make are:
1. Not Having a Plan
Creating your business page and randomly posting won’t help your company grow. As a matter of fact, it will paint a very unprofessional picture of your brand. The right thing to do here is to have a plan. And for this, you need to take various things into consideration. You must decide the budget you’re willing to spend on sponsored content. Also, check what your competitors are doing. The nature of the products and/or services you offer must also be considered when forming this plan.
2. Not Defining Your Target Audience
Remember the fact that not every social media user is your target audience. Thousands of people will just scroll over your post as it doesn’t interest them. This will result in a poor conversion rate.
For example, if you are promoting kids’ apparel, those who do not have children won’t even give your post a second glance. The reason? It doesn’t target them. Therefore, you need to define your target audience and create content accordingly. Only then you will be able to get better conversions.
3. Buying Followers
Always remember that it’s the conversion that counts, not the number of likes and followers. Social media users have become savvier than ever. If your profile is only a few days old and it already has thousands of followers, they will clearly understand that you have gone against the social media community rules and purchased followers. This clearly doesn’t create a positive image of your brand.
Furthermore, buying fake followers also limits your posts. The algorithm of social media platforms works in such a way that when you make a post, it shows on the newsfeed/timeline of selected profiles. If they engage with the said post, the algorithm shows it to other subscribers/followers as well, deeming it as a good post. Now, what happens when you buy fake followers is that they do not engage/interact with your post. Resultantly, there’s very limited activity as compared to the number of followers. The algorithm doesn’t think your post is worthy of being promoted.
Simply put, you lose more audience than you gain when you buy fake followers.
4. Using Irrelevant Hashtags
Hashtags have surely proven to be helpful in promoting posts. But, as they say, excess of everything is bad. Using too many hashtags that don’t even relate to your post won’t do any good to you. On the other hand, only using a few hashtags that define what you’ve shared can do the trick.
5. Not Engaging with Your Audience
What many companies/SMM marketers do is that they create very engaging content, post it on their feed, and then just leave it there. They, of course, check the statistics and other vital details. But while doing this, they neglect an important factor – engaging with their audience.
Replying to their comments, giving them a timely response and engaging with your target audience will surely boost your social media presence.
6. Not Being Creative
You can’t survive in the digital world if you aren’t creative in your approach. There are hundreds and thousands of other companies that offer products and/or services similar to yours. So, how to convince users to like what you are offering? The answer lies in being creative. Of course, the quality of your products and services matters. But, at first, you need to get users to buy them.
So, make a point to come up with creative and engaging content for your social media users.
7. Not Hiring Experts
Lastly, handling social media marketing of your business on your own is something that you should avoid. There are so many other aspects of your business that deserve your focus. You should pay attention to them and leave this task to professionals only. They have the required expertise and experience to create and gauge effective SMM campaigns for your business.
You can also contemplate the idea of hiring a performance marketing expert for SMM advertising.
