Business Social Media Mistakes to Avoid

Social media feels like it is everywhere! Depending upon your age, field of work, and lifestyle, you may be on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, SnapChat, Twitter, or Pinterest. It’s hard to keep up with all of the posts, pins, tweets, and snaps!

The good news is that you really don’t need to be everywhere, but you do need to be somewhere. Read on to find out about your business and what you should be doing on social media by looking at some pretty common mistakes of social media marketing.

Failing to Have a Social Media Strategy

Social media may seem like fun and games, but for businesses it is actual work that needs to be carefully crafted and maintained. Companies need to find their niche and use that to drive their marketing strategy. Without a strategy there will be no understanding if your efforts are working. What’s worse is that followers will wonder what’s going on with your company if they try to interact on a channel and there are no replies. That would send a message that your business is not thriving in this digital age.

Failing to Understand the Target Audience

One of the main goals of any marketing department is to understand who is using your services or buying your products. Demographics are critical. What age, gender, education level, and/or location is drawn to your company most? Without knowing who your audience is, you will not be able to focus your social media strategy in the right areas. For example, LinkedIn tends to be a platform for professionals trying to make connections in the business world, whereas Instagram and SnapChat tend to draw a younger crowd with more visual content. Once you understand who you want to market to, then you can focus your efforts on the right social media platform.

Failing to Address Negative Feedback

We have all seen it on social media, a benign post gets a negative comment and the company does not react. This is sending a message that you either do not care about your consumers or you are not on top of your social media pages. Either way, it is not a good message to send to potential customers. Along the same lines, do not delete the message but rather respond quickly and courteously to show that you are responsive and want to correct any wrongs that may have occurred.

Social media is a full-time job where someone on your team needs to develop content, post it and, most importantly, follow through with comments made by followers. Don’t have a spare employee to spearhead this process? You may need to hire a social media consulting company or social media specialist who can nurture your presence online and steer you in the direction you want.

Categorised in: Blog, Search Engine Optimization, Social Media