5 Common Mistakes Brands Make on Social Media

By Lisa Michaels

Social media continues to draw the majority of online consumer activity, making it a fantastic place for brands to win new business. A good social media strategy will connect you with large numbers of people and help you efficiently grow your business. A bad strategy, on the other hand, can send embarrassing and harmful messages that result in a damaged reputation. Before starting your social media campaign, you need to understand the importance of the choices you make. 

Business owners and managers pursue social media strategies despite the risks because they regard social media marketing as an effective and affordable way to increase their sales. Social media mistakes, however, doom many brands in front of millions of people, making recovery almost impossible. Despite the past failures of so many businesses, new companies continue repeating the same mistakes that prevent them from benefiting from social media channels. You can improve your chance for success by learning how to avoid these five common mistakes that have caused so many brands before you to fail. 

1. Not Engaging With Your Audience

Businesses make a big mistake by failing to realize that communications on social networks go both ways. When people respond to a post, they expect a response. When you continue to post to your social profiles and never respond to the comments and messages you receive, you make people feel ignored and cause them to leave. Engaging in a conversation with your audience accomplishes one of the underlying goals of social media. Therefore, you need to make sure to create a good reputation for your brand by replying to all the feedback you receive, even when people have harsh things to say.

Regardless of whether you express appreciation, answer questions or resolve a customer’s problem, your prompt responses make people feel important and respected. You also inspire people to have confidence in your brand.

2. Dealing With Negative Feedback the Wrong Way

Some companies react inappropriately to angry and dissatisfied customers. Deleting nasty remarks, for example, often worsens problems. Similarly, ignoring angry feedback left on your social media pages makes your visitors wonder why you don’t care. Don’t make the mistake of ignoring hostile remarks, blaming the customer, or engaging in a shouting match. You need to learn how to handle the issue the right way and leverage problems to your advantage. 

Regardless of how well you run your business, you should expect to receive an occasional negative comment. When people report a problem with an order or an otherwise bad experience with your company or brand, you can display to the world your commitment to customer service excellence. Apologize for the inconvenience a problem has caused and then find a satisfactory solution. When you handle problems well, you can retain customers whom you might have otherwise lost and earn the confidence of other shoppers as well. 

3. Not Understanding Your Audience

Some brands are still guilty of making one of the biggest marketing mistakes by failing to define and understand their audience. Every business has a unique set of relevant customers that exhibit different behaviors, including their choice of social media platform. Failure to understand the expectations of a target market can result in an ineffective social media presence. 

Market research takes time and effort, but the work pays off by letting you connect with your target audience. You need to find out what your audience needs and wants to see on social media. Then share information that has value to your audience and publish content that positions your brand as their logical choice. Don’t forget to track how your audience responds to your content using analytics tools and optimize it to get the best results.

4. Pushing Only Marketing Messages

Brands make a mistake when they do not achieve an appropriate balance between selling and relationship building. Of course, businesses need to close sales to learn a profit. Still, too much promotional activity in your social media channels can drive people away and give your brand a bad name.

Rather than using social media to make a constant sales pitch, spend time building trust between you and your audience. Provide value to the online community by helping people to understand their needs and showing them how to make their lives better. As a general rule, spend 80% of your social media effort engaging people with valuable content. Use the other 20% of your time promoting your products.

5. Not Using Any Tools

Brands that tried to manually manage multiple social media accounts make a serious mistake. Logging into each platform to post content can become a tedious and confusing process. Rather than risking burnout, you should take advantage of available tools that can help you with social media management. Popular applications such as SocialOomph, Buffer, and Hootsuite simplify the process of posting fresh and relevant content to all your social profiles.

However, you shouldn’t depend too much on automation. Your followers can tell when you have taken the time to interact with them, so don’t disappoint them. Use tools to supplement and simplify your social media effort, but never stop providing them with a human touch. As your social media campaigns progress, try using tools such as SpreadFast and SproutSocial to monitor and tweak your results. 

Social media gives brands like yours a fantastic marketing opportunity. Avoid the mistakes other companies have made by engaging your audience and providing outstanding service. Don’t forget to use tools to facilitate your social media presence but never forget to make providing value your overarching goal.

Guest Author Bio:

Lisa Michaels is a freelance writer, editor and a striving content marketing consultant from Portland. Being self-employed, she does her best to stay on top of the current trends in the business world. She spends her free time trying out new recipes or reading Scandinavian crime novels. Feel free to connect with her on Twitter @LisaBMichaels.

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