Social media marketing for your small business is tough enough without shooting yourself in the foot. Self-induced social faux pas are easy to commit, and hard to get over. While some 74 percent of brand marketers saw an increase in website traffic after investing just 6 hours per week on social media, in contrast to another 83 percent have abandoned a purchase after a bad or non-existent customer service incident. (Creotivo.com)
So in the interest of not having that happen to your business, listed below are five common social media mistakes to make sure you avoid!
Common Social Media Mistakes
- Not engaging with your audience – You should always be actively engaging your social media visitors. Seek advice, conduct polls, share funny stories (hopefully somewhat relevant) and ask their thoughts: they'll gladly provide them, and you'll be far wiser and nearer to your goals in several ways.
- Lacking excitement or passion – If you're not excited about your brand, it's likely to be very difficult to get anyone else excited about it, either. Communicate this in your postings, and in your campaigns. We all want to create a buzz about our businesses, but it starts with you!
- Constant promotion – Nobody wants to be constantly pitched to, and there is no place this is more true than in social media. Once you've developed a relationship and trust, it will be much easier to insert the sporadic (soft) selling message.
- Not responding to your customers – There is no faster way to destroy whatever goodwill and respect you've created in your brand than to ignore your customers. It's way too easy to totally miss customers and prospects posting their concerns, questions or complaints on these very platforms! Don't be that guy!
- No plan for social media – The lack of a strategy for your social media marketing is sort of asking for it to fail. You need to understand what you're doing, and which platforms are good for you. (Not all are!)
We would be remiss if we didn't share a link to a glaring example of what NOT to do! After the recent Boston marathon bombing, the food site Epicurious sent out a couple of unfortunate tweets.
