Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes

By Donald Smithon

Chances are, the person reading this right now has Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Social media surrounds our world, but some businesses still think of social media as an afterthought. Any digital marketing company will tell you your business can thrive with the right social media marketing strategies.

About 20 percent of customers use social media channels to find information about any business. That means your role as a business owner should be to maintain your brand's online presence.

What some entrepreneurs fail to understand is that it isn't just for fun-it's a force to be reckoned with. When used right, it can bring power to your business. On the other hand, flops on social media can be bad for business. Here are the top social media marketing mistakes companies make.

1. Having Too Many Social Channels

Alright, so if you're on social media, you don't have to be on all the platforms. Your company just needs to be on the ones that are best able to reach your customers. After all, the content you post on LinkedIn may not apply to Snapchat, as your audiences on both platforms may also differ.

Additionally, every channel you sign up for is another platform to maintain regularly. It is a real-time channel, which means content should always be flowing on your page. So if you have five different channels (which you can), you have to make sure you can manage all of them regularly.

2. Ignoring Feedback

This applies to both good and bad feedback. Customers love hearing from a brand they follow because it gives your company a friendly, human face. While it may be tricky to keep track of your followers' interactions, the more (and quicker) you respond to their comments, the more chances you'll have of giving them a good experience.

It's said that 71 per cent of customers who have a good experience with a brand are more likely to recommend it to others. This is also your chance to express brand personality. You don't have to sound like a robot. Use a voice that works for your branding. Spotify's brand identity targets millennials, so their tone is fun and hip.

3. Posting Content Manually

Creating content and managing social channels regularly are tough tasks. It takes a lot of time and effort, which is why some businesses fail to update frequently. Luckily, there are lots of tools that can help you optimize your social media management.

There are tools for different needs. For publishing, there's Hootsuite, Buffer, and Sprout Social; for quick graphics, there's Canva. These are just some of the examples of tools you can use to save time, and make its management easier.

4. Not Optimizing Content for Each Platform

Your hashtags on Instagram make sense but on Facebook, not really. At the same time, the ideal character count on Facebook is not the same on Twitter, and the number of emojis you put on Instagram won't work on LinkedIn. Each social media platform has different ideal posts, so you should optimize your posts for each channel.

Any    digital marketing company knows social media marketing is more than just signing up for accounts. Maintaining your channels is a lot of work but it can build brand loyalty, which is something hard to find. So the next time you sign your business up for a social media account, remember to maintain it on a regular business.