What Are The Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes?
You probably already understand the need for a social media presence and there’s a good chance you already interact with prospective clients and customers through Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and other social media networks relevant to your business goals.
The thing to remember about social media is that it’s right out there in public, and anyone can find it. Everything you post, positive or negative, will be judged. The bigger the audience you have, the more judgment will be coming forth. While the judgment in and of itself isn’t bad, posting the wrong thing can make social media marketing fail and cause your entire plan to fail.
Here are 10 of the most common social media marketing mistakes.
FREE Checklist: The Online Business Mistakes You MUST Avoid
10 Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes
1. Being Irregular
Online, being predictable is sometimes a good thing. When your audience knows that you regularly post a new recipe video on YouTube every Tuesday at noon, guess when they will be looking for you? This significantly drives up shares, likes, comments and other forms of engagement.
The same is true no matter what market you’re in, what social media network you’re posting content on, and whether you’re simply trying to share information or achieve some business goal. Additionally, if you post live content, your audience will reach out to you and tell you what the best time is for them. This means you enjoy a “shooting fish in a barrel” scenario where you’re delivering content to a captive audience that can’t wait to hear what you have to say next.
2. Updates with Poor Grammar and Spelling
Use a spell check and grammar check to ensure that your social media content is written as well as possible. Of course, you don’t have to sound like a robot, but you want to at least not have glaring mistakes.
3. Going Too Long
Social media is so named because people are hanging out on these platforms to socialize. They don’t want to get caught up in lengthy conversations most of the time. When they do, they’ll hit you in your inbox or private message you. People scroll on social media and your message is going to be on a person’s newsfeed for only a short amount of time. They’re looking for memorable and engaging content that draws their attention and blasts out a short message. Keep your messages on social media short and make sure your headlines grab attention.
4. Not Including a Call to Action
This is a little tricky, because people spend time on social media networks to socialize. This means if you don’t include a call to action in every one of your Facebook updates, you’re to be forgiven. Just don’t forget to include some directives in most of your social media communications. You can’t build your email list or sell your course without making a concerted effort to do so. Add a reward or some other incentive to your CTA to get your social media
followers to do what you want them to do. This drives up your conversion rate and establishes a sense of trust with your audience.
5. A Bad Profile Picture
The best profile picture includes your face so that your audience can see your eyes and your whole face. People will trust you more when you include a regular headshot or an artful headshot over a poor one that doesn’t show who you are or tries to hide who you are.
6. No Profile Picture
Using cartoons or other images for your profile is also a mistake, unless you’re a large company that has a well-recognized logo. Otherwise, people want to know who is behind the brand.
7. Trying to Establish a Presence on Every Social Media Network
Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and LinkedIn are just a few of the dozens and dozens of worthwhile social media sites. This means if you try to establish and maintain an ongoing presence on all of the sites available, you simply couldn’t do it. You need to experiment with multiple sites until you find one or two that reward your efforts.
Treating each platform the same is a mistake because they’re not the same. They all have different personalities and sizes and types of content. On the platforms you do use, treat them individually and create graphics especially for each so that it feels like it fits and isn’t just a repeat.
8. Stolen and Borrowed Images
Never use images that are found “free” on the internet unless they’re from a specific website that has clear terms of service that allows you to use the images. Even then, do be careful. You’re always better off using your own images or paying for them from reputable sources.
9. Abusive and Threatening Content
Even if you have some followers who are being nasty, don’t contribute to it. Use the block and delete functions of your account as much as possible to avoid that type of situation. If a customer has a problem with your product or service, deal with it via a direct message quickly and efficiently.
10. Trying to Do It All Yourself
The most fundamental aspect of creating a successful social media marketing strategy is posting content on a regular basis. This can take time as once you have the content, you need to log in to each social media channel and post it. However, there are easy ways to do this. You can use tools such as Missinglett_r.  or another option is to outsource your social media needs for what you may find is a surprisingly low weekly or monthly price tag.
Free Checklist: The Online Business Mistakes To Avoid
The basic rule to avoid social media marketing mistakes is to ensure that anything you publish anything on social media has a reason for existing and a goal connected to it that you can track for success.
We all make mistakes. We wouldn’t be human if we didn’t. In the world of online business, you’re going to make some minor boo-boos and some cataclysmic mistakes. It’s all part of the learning process. Although mistakes are going to happen, you can avoid the common online business mistakes and other pitfalls that are lurking around the corner. Download my free checklist, The Top 10 Online Business Mistakes and avoid the false moves and slipups that even veteran online entrepreneurs and bloggers make.