Social media marketing is one of the top ways to advertise your products and services these days. The power of social media can propel you to the top of the financial ladder, or it can cause you to topple and die. There is finesse to good social media marketing that includes avoiding some of the dangers listed below.
1) Being Unprofessional:
The first mistake a lot of people make is to forget to be professional. Sure, you might use Facebook for your own personal reasons. However, when you are using Facebook on the behalf of your business, you really need to keep in mind that you are a business owner. That means you don’t post off-color jokes or pictures of your children unless you know for a fact that your target market would be enriched by what you are posting. If you don’t know what your target market would enjoy, you need to do a bit more work with defining your target market.
2) Not Posting Regularly:
In the world of social media, things move fast. That means your post from three weeks ago was forgotten about… three weeks ago. If you want to stay fresh in people’s minds, you need to make sure you’re posting regularly. You don’t want to overdo it, but you do have to actually do it!
3) Posting Boring Stuff:
Make sure you don’t make the mistake of posting boring things that have been seen before. Part of the reason that social media works so well is that your followers can share your information with their networks, which provides you with a whole new audience. However, that can’t happen if you never post anything worth sharing. Check out news sites and blogs in your industry to make sure you catch all the things that are going on, that your customers would want to know about.
4) Ignoring the Competition:
Avoid ignoring the competition. You have to always know what your competition is doing; not so you copy them, but so you know how you can zig when they zag. This is a great way to see what works and doesn’t work for someone who is in a similar situation to you.
5) Overpaying for Services:
Don’t overpay for services. If you want to have so many tweets go out a day, you don’t have to pay for a service that will do that for you. There are free third-party sites and software that will let you schedule things such as tweets and Facebook posts. Paying for a service like this would be a huge waste of money, when you can be allocating your budget to better things.
6) Spamming:
Spamming is the best way to not only lose followers but to also get your business accounts blocked or even deleted. As a business, you do not want to be annoying your client base. No one wants to see the same post every hour. Instead of enticing people to come check you out, you are instead alienating them and projecting a negative image for your business.
7) Ignoring your Followers:
If you have fans or happy customers sending you messages and essentially advertising on your behalf, don’t ignore them. Instead, show your appreciation by occasionally responding or running giveaways in their honor. The worst thing you can do is make them feel like they don’t matter. On the other hand, if you are receiving hostile comments, ignore them on that note.
8) Attacking Others:
Don’t start fights or attack your competitors. In fact, don’t do anything negative in public. If you wouldn’t announce it in the newspaper or broadcast it on a commercial, don’t talk about it on your social media, either. Potential clients and followers enjoy a good corporate blowup for all the wrong reasons – to make fun of them and use them as negative examples.
9) Followers’ Bias:
Don’t treat some followers better than others. You probably can’t reply to everyone, but don’t make it look like you’re only responding to a certain kind of people. Some of the worst social media meltdowns were when companies were accused of favoring their “influential” and “rich” followers over others. Value each one of your followers as if they were your best customer – even if they might be sending you hate mail.
You may be wondering what you should do if you shouldn’t do any of the things above. It’s easy: engage, offer good information, and be professional and courteous. If you have an intern or assistant running your social media for you, check in once in a while to see what’s going on.
Social media marketing doesn’t have to be hard or daunting. Treat it like you would for any other aspect of marketing or advertising. Put on your best suit, smile real wide, and you will attract loyal followers who are thankful to follow a business like yours.
Photo Source: MSEO FabianMedina
