Social media has become a vital 21st century marketing tool for businesses. It has helped small businesses grow quickly and allows them to connect with their customers anytime and anywhere.
However, social media has also destroyed businesses who misused the platform and ruined their reputations in the process. Often businesses waste money by not spending enough time analyzing important data or spending too much time on platforms their customers don’t use.
Read More: Should Your Business Be Using Social Media?
Let’s look at five ways businesses fail at social media:
1. You don’t follow the laws of ‘social media karma.’
To get value from your customers and followers, you must provide value first. Most social media users want to share entertaining or informative content that makes them look interesting to their followers.
You can earn the social karma that later inspires clicks, leads, and conversions if you provide those things. Otherwise, no one hears your message, which can damage your brand.
2. You don’t connect social and sales.
There’s no doubt that social media is essential for marketing success. But what typically happens is that companies allocate a considerable portion of their budget to social media without first having a plan to measure and create a return on their investment.
It’s crucial to understand that social media users don’t instantly go from Facebook or Instagram follower to customer. Using Google Analytics, you can measure with assisted conversions and see how social plays into your sales cycle.
3. You don’t measure what matters most.
Social analytics is a way to track the success of your social media efforts – but they’re not how you track the success of social media efforts for your business. Some numbers are helpful to the people managing your social media marketing, but they don’t always relate to the bottom line. You must identify key performance indicators specific to your business and measure those regularly.
For example, the number of ‘Likes’ on a Facebook page isn’t necessarily a performance indicator. Just because you have millions of likes on a page doesn’t mean anyone is talking about or sharing it.
It’s better to analyze something like ‘engagement rate’ because you can tie that in with traffic and conversions from social media channels.
4. Your social media personality isn’t engaging.
On social media, your brand should be welcoming, entertaining, and show that you’re not all business. Keep your audience in mind, and remember that not every social brand needs to be witty or funny.
It’s also essential to keep your personal beliefs off your company’s social media networks. You could lose followers or turn them against you if you talk about controversial issues that don’t affect your business. Some company social media fails have been epic – forcing them into crisis mode and firing employees. (Google ‘corporate social media disasters’ if you want to be reminded of some famous fails!)
Read More: 8 Effective Ways to Grow Your Social Media Following
5. You trust an intern to manage your social media.
Despite repeated disasters, businesses continue to allow unqualified people to manage their social media. While interns may be experts at using social media for themselves, it’s entirely different from managing a company’s social media presence. And inexperience can lead to disaster.
Do you remember what happened to the Red Cross? Instead of sharing something private on her personal Twitter account, an intern accidentally posted it on the Red Cross account.
It’s also unrealistic to assume one person can handle everything. You need someone who understands your audience and engages them across the different social media channels. You also need someone who understands how to analyze data, track your results, and make adjustments as needed. And you need someone who knows how to tie it all together. Maybe it’s time to hire a social media manager who can oversee the bigger picture and produce the best results – they can also delegate specific responsibilities and tasks.
Bottom Line
Social media platforms can help make or break your business. But social media marketing is a lot more than posting random things on your social accounts. Based in College Station, Impact Group Marketing offers social media marketing - including setup and management across all platforms with packages that include daily posting, engagement, and reporting. Contact us today if you need help making your social media marketing efforts more successful!