I am certain that we can all agree that social media has become powerful for marketing. However, your business shouldn’t be using social media just to be using social media. If the social media platforms that your business is using are not adding substantive value to your business, then why use them at all? Here are some signs that you might using social media incorrectly.
You Don’t Update Enough
This is probably the number one mistake that small business make with social media marketing. Having a facebook page is great, but people aren’t going to bother checking it if you don’t update it. You have to update your social media sites regularly with fresh content in order to maintain the interest of your followers. If days, weeks, or months go by without any posts, then people will stop checking your business sites. Develop a posting schedule so that it becomes a habit for you. If you post regularly, people are more likely to check your sites regularly.
You Don’t Engage Your Followers
Social media is all about sharing information and starting a conversation. Your social media channels shouldn’t be used merely as another form of advertisement, and simply broadcasting information isn’t enough. You want to actually engage your followers, keep them entertained, and keep them coming back. You want your content to be interesting and relevant enough that people talk about it on social sites, that they share it; this can gain you more followers.
You Don’t Have a Strategy
You likely have a marketing strategy for advertising, and you should have a marketing strategy for your social media platforms too. A comprehensive strategy that incorporates all of your social media will ultimately be the most successful. Think about the ideology of your company and how you want to connect with your customers. Let that be the overarching principle guiding your daily posts.
Your Posts Are the Same Across All Your Media Platforms
Different social media platforms are intended for different types of content. What performs well on one social outlet doesn’t necessarily do well on others. What works well on facebook and Linkedin might not be as engaging on Twitter. Instagram and Pinterest are more image, or picture, oriented, so posting your blog articles there doesn’t make much sense. If you simply auto-post your updates across all of your social channels, then you definitely won’t engage your followers as effectively as you could.
You Don’t Respond Quickly to Customer Posts
With the use of social media comes the expectation of expedience. Customers and followers expect you to respond to them quickly, and this means within hours, not days. If it is too difficult to monitor your sites individually, then consider a social media application such as Hootsuite to assist you. No matter how great your business is, you will occasionally receive a negative comment or a customer complaint. It is important to respond to negative mentions about your business on social sites. Ignoring or deleting negative comments or complaints won’t actually rid you of the negativity. Offer your sincerest apologies, and explain how you intend to address the problem. Showing customers that you are concerned and proactive is far better for your business than pretending nothing happened.
To summarize, if you use social media to help market your business, then you need to actually use it. Put thought into your strategy, engage your customers and followers, and interact with them. Otherwise, you are setting yourself up to crash and burn.
