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What social media marketing mistakes are you most likely to make? You might think that social media is just for promoting your content, but social media is more than just a promotional tool. It’s a way to connect with customers and prospects on a personal level-but it can also be a social media marketing mistake if you’re not doing it right.
You’ve been doing a great job, but did you know there are some mistakes you could be making? Believe it or not, there’s a lot to learn from other companies and how they handle social media marketing. The clients that we work with who are on track to grow to a million-dollar-company (or more) in the future are paying attention to these guidelines.
It’s no secret social media is one of the most important parts of marketing these days. You can’t afford to take your social media marketing lightly. But there are so many mistakes you could be making that will keep you from growing your business – and they’re all too common! So if social media marketing has been on your mind, but it’s also been hard to know where to start, then I’m here for you with this list of social media mistakes that entrepreneurs make in business.
And once we’re done, I’ll show you how easy it is to fix them all (at the bottom)!
One social media marketing mistake that almost every entrepreneur makes is to not be consistent with posting.
I’m an entrepreneur just like you, and I get busy. I have other important parts of my business that I need to run. Then I also have things outside of work such as family (super important!), fun, painting, and sometimes just taking a mental health break. I’ve been overworked in my life, and I know the importance of balance in life, and the importance of freeing up some time so that you are working in your area of genius and influence.
Just like you, I would get busy, and I would post infrequently, so only a few people would see each post. Even though I had more social media accounts (since I have to constantly be testing each new one as part of my work), it didn’t matter when I was posting so infrequently.
You don’t have to post OFTEN … you just have to be CONSISTENT. If you only have time to post once a month, then that is where you should start – although our clients who are heading to that infamous 7-figure mark post frequently and strategically, and you will need to get there at some point as well (psst … we can help).
What was one cause of my lack of consistency in posting? One mistake is that I was posting way too much content on social media. My social media feeds started to feel overwhelming because there were so many posts and nothing coordinated. It took away from the social networks, and I became less active on my social media accounts because it became the last thing I wanted to do.
Another social media time suck that impacted my consistency was keeping up with it as if it were a second job, as opposed to being social. It’s easy to get too obsessed and think that social media is a time suck (and it definitely can be). But socializing should be a priority, not social media. And if you make socializing your priority, social media will fall into place as a part of the process.
I fixed this issue, and you can too.
A social media marketing mistake that many social media businesses make is using the wrong type of images. For instance, if you’re trying to advertise a new line of breakfast cereals, and you’re using pictures of people eating dinner at night time, then obviously that’s not going to work very well. By contrast, if you’re trying to advertise a new line of weight lifting clothing and you use pictures of people with well-defined muscles holding up mirrors, then that will work.
Similarly, you will probably get better results by posting an image of your product being used (showing how it connects to a lifestyle) than an image of your product simply sitting there.
You need to make sure that you are always showing the type of image or photos that will help your social media marketing campaign be successful.
Another mistake? Using the wrong hashtags, or tagging people who don’t follow them back. It’s important to use a variety of social media platforms, but it’s also important to know which social media platforms your target audience hangs out on.
You may also be tempted to unfollow your friends and family’s social media accounts if they don’t follow you back. If they are following your social media account, it means they find value in what you have to say, and there is a higher chance of them supporting you in the future. I always recommend that you don’t worry about trying to get friends and family to follow all of your accounts … unless they are actually in your target audience demographic, because it’s better to have fewer of the right people connected to your business social media than simply a lot of fans. But if they do choose to follow you as a way to offer support, appreciate the gesture. Following them back can show similar support.
Repeating posts too frequently or using them as filler posts can end up in your audience tuning out if the topic isn’t relevant to them.
Not having a social media plan is also a mistake that you should avoid. If you don’t have something mapped out for your social media efforts, especially if you are pushing social media marketing on your own, you will make mistakes, or at the very least waste effort and experience a lower ROI. One way to fix this is to plan your annual marketing. Another may be to outsource your posting strategy.
Using social media as a broadcast tool is a very common mistake. Social media should be social. It is not a billboard. When you make social media too much about you, your service or product, and it becomes less about your audience, you’ll see that reflected in your engagement. Social marketing should be done with social goals in mind, not just broadcasting information. A good rule of thumb I use when planning what to post online is the 80/20 rule.
You would think that as someone with the level of marketing expertise that I have … 30 years of experience marketing for Fortune 500 companies, multi-million and multi-billion-dollar organizations, now focused on providing my marketing knowledge to tens of thousands of small businesses that would otherwise not have access to the same level of expertise as the big corporations … well, you’d assume that I always do everything related to marketing perfectly, right?
Not so.
For one thing, I’m an entrepreneur just like you. And although my job is literally doing social media marketing (plus more), I don’t get paid by doing my OWN social media marketing. In that sense, how I use social media in my business is very much like how you use social media in yours. So I’ve run into all of the same things that I see other entrepreneurs struggle with.
So what did I do to finetune my social media, make it more focused, and present a better ROI?
I outsourced it to my team. (You can too … see below).
Now, instead of running my social media, I run my business. I check in to the platform that we use for post scheduling and add to what they’ve already scheduled as I see fit, but instead of taking the time to figure out what I’m going to be posting, I have a plan to highlight a new service or benefit and schedule posts related to that – while all of the rest continues to run seamlessly.
Or I respond to comments and messages directly on the social platforms, which is being social.
Outsourcing my social media has freed up SO MUCH of my time that I’m seriously kicking myself for not doing it sooner. I guess it was a trust issue – I wasn’t sure I could trust someone to do it the way I liked (and especially if that someone didn’t have the same years of experience that I do.) But you know what? I’ve got some great people on my team, and I’m able to let them do their jobs and then I use my time for strategy oversight for the digital marketing plans for myself and our clients.
They do a great job, and they can free up your time in the exact same way.
Social media is a great tool to use to market your business because it’s free, you control a lot of the message, and you can engage with your audience in a way that wasn’t always possible in the past. As a recap:
Tired of Trying to DIY Your Social Media?
One of the best things I’ve done is turn over the majority of my social media to my team. Yes, as a highly experienced marketer, I know how to run my own social media … but this saves me SO much time and presents a great ROI … plus lets me focus on those pieces of my business that only I can do.
We offer a range of high quality content and growth related services across the top social media networks. The easiest place to start is with our Monthly Social Media marketing packages.
Our work and recommendations always center around all of the marketing pieces that are best for your business – even when you only use us for one service.
Vicky is the CEO and Chief Creative Strategist of Vicky Wu Marketing. She draws from 30 years of experience at the CMO level, the CEO level, marketing for Fortune 500 companies and multi-million and multi-billion-dollar organizations, PLUS strategies learned helping startups and nonprofits with limited budgets … now focusing on providing SMBs with effective and efficient marketing strategies – giving them access to the same level of expertise as the really big guys with deep pockets, that they may not otherwise be able to access.
Let the pros handle your social media.
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