Your goal isn’t to post lots of content or even get lots of likes—your goal is to build engagement and turn followers into paying customers. According to Hubspot, 92% of all marketers indicated that their social media efforts have generated more exposure for their businesses, while 80% of marketers indicated that their social media efforts increased traffic.

Are you making one or more of these common social media marketing mistakes?

 

Posting without a strategy?

You can post funny cat memes all day long, but if your tactics aren’t based on a larger social media strategy—complete with specific, measurable goals—all those likes aren’t likely to convert into customers. It is vital that you have a clear plan before you bring your marketing efforts on social networking sites. You should tackle all points including the goals, expected results, the likely issues that your campaign may encounter along the way as well as a contingency plan that you can carry out in the event that “plan A” fails.

Are you only focusing on your company?

Marketers talk a lot about the 80/20 rule of social media: Talk about yourself no more than 20% of the time, and spend the remaining 80% of your posts sharing value-added content like industry news and helpful resources, joining conversations, and celebrating the interests and accomplishments of others in your network.Have you ever had a friend who can’t stop talking about himself? (You know … that friend.) It’s a major turn off to hang out with someone who’s entirely self-absorbed and doesn’t listen to you.  The same goes for Facebook. The more your social content engages your ideal customers, the more likely it is that they’ll move further along the sales cycle to produce a return. Also, Facebook will make sure your followers don’t see your posts if too many of them are overly promotional.

Selling, Not Connecting

Always trying to close the deal? You should always be connecting first and foremost. It’s possible for some businesses to effectively use social media as a sales tool, but it’s primarily a relationship-building tool. Customers on social media generally steer clear of the hard sell in favor of conversation, entertainment and information.

You’re Not Interacting With Followers

Followers and consumers expect to be able to contact you through your Facebook Page. Even if you don’t answer messages right away, make a point of treating Facebook messages like email inquiries and seek to get back to people within 1-2 business days.It’s not just good social media manners; it’s good customer service. If you’re on Twitter, you’ll have noticed that you regularly get tweets from your followers. Some of these will hopefully be positive reviews of your service or product. However, there is a chance that you might get tweeted some criticism or negative reviews. If this happens, don’t just ignore them. Otherwise, you might come across as ignorant and not bothered. Instead, take the time to deal with any negativity to ensure your followers that it was a one-off situation.

Fresh Content

People will get tired of your social media if you don’t regularly update its content. And if you haven’t posted for a few months, your followers might even think that you’ve closed down. So be sure to stay on top of your social media and try to post fresh content whenever possible. This is another great reason why you need a blog. The more you post, the more fresh content you have for social media.

In the end, it all comes back to your audience. What do they  want? How did they react to your posts? Did a certain type of post perform better than others?  These types of analytics should be leading your marketing plans, strategies, and tactics every step of the way. Success on social media is like search engine optimization – it takes time to build and effort to maintain. You won’t see quick results by investing in this type of marketing, but you will grow a solid base of people and provide a valuable form of customer service – in an era where customer service is the dividing line between successful and failing businesses.

If you need guidance on creating a social media strategy for your business, give us a call at 203 414 9692 or email us we would love to talk to you!