As a business owner, you probably know that social media is an important part of your marketing strategy. However, you don’t want to become overwhelmed — and you certainly don’t want your social media marketing efforts to be wasted.
Before you move forward with your social media marketing, here five mistakes your business needs to avoid:
1. Ignoring Others
First of all, you need to make sure that you aren’t ignoring others. If you are a company, there is a good chance that some of your customers will use social media to reach out to you. It’s important that you answer legitimate questions and engage if you are on social media.
Along with that, make sure you are measured in your approach to how you talk about yourself. Be sure to highlight others, and talk about great things that can help your customers.
2. Posting All the Time
Sometimes less really is more. You don’t need to post all the time, even if it isn’t all your stuff. It’s important to carefully consider each thing you post. Your social media marketing strategy should include thoughtful content that makes sense to your audience. You don’t need to spam the feed or post all the time. Focus your approach and post accordingly.
3. Removing Negative Comments
It seems like a no-brainer: if someone says something critical of you in a Facebook comment or elsewhere on social media, you should try to remove the comment if you can. However, this isn’t the case. If it’s a legitimate criticism or a negative review, you can respond professionally. Let it stand. You don’t want to tolerate vulgarity, profanity, or personal attacks on other members of the community, but removing all negative comments is a short road to a social media marketing disaster as people accuse you of censorship and ignoring them. You can use it as a way to hopefully overcome your poor online reputation.
4. Signing Up for Every Social Network
You don’t need to be on every social network for the sake of being on the social network. Carefully consider where your audience is. Also, think about what makes sense for your business. Keeping up with social media can be exhausting and time-consuming. You need to make sure that you are still on top of the situation, and that you have time for other important business activities. Choose the social media outlets that make sense, and create profiles that are consistent and helpful to your marketing cause.
5. Neglecting Social Media Guidelines
It’s tempting to just let social media marketing be the Wild West of your Internet experience. However, you need to create a set of social media guidelines for your company. Be clear about the kinds of things that should be posted, as well as who can post. Carefully vet the people you allow to post to your account. Institute policies that reduce the chance that you will end up with someone accidentally posting from the wrong account, or that someone posts something outrageous.
Social media marketing is an important part of your business plan. Make sure you do it right.
