The bulk of your suppliers, competitors, and clients will, at the very least, have a formal presence on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter, the top three social media networks. Even your own firm might benefit from using social media.
However, there are 10, 25, or 50 small businesses that fail for every one that successfully uses social media to generate leads and revenue. What is the reason for this? Despite the fact that many company users make the same few typical errors, the success stories show that social media marketing is effective and yields benefits.
See whether any of the items on the list below apply to you by checking them out. It is incredibly simple to make typical blunders while utilizing social media that don’t produce the desired effects.
1. Spending too much time on social media
The use of social media for marketing requires a considerable time and money investment. Spreading yourself too thin is a typical mistake made by SMEs. Although aiming to be active on three or more social media sites may seem like a good idea, if you don’t have the time to do so, you run the danger of missing out on the advantages of any one of them. This issue explains why a large number of corporate social media profiles seem to be dormant or are only infrequently updated. Focusing on one or two platforms and giving them your all is ideal since it will produce a steady supply of fascinating and pertinent information. If not, your clients will become disinterested.
2. Ignoring potential customers on a personal level
Social media is fantastic because it gives marketing a more personalized feel. You no longer have to spend hundreds of dollars on expensive networking events or endure awkward lunches since it allows you to speak with specific individuals in real time. What an asset! Thus, it is extremely regretful when customers’ feedback and messages are disregarded.
Most often, issues one and two—a lack of time and excessive automation—are to blame. This may be prevented by consistently checking your social media accounts to make sure that all messages are being received and are being responded to. Your clientele will value this, and your business will benefit from it.
3. Using the same content on every platform
It takes a lot of time to create content for social media, and small businesses often have a limited amount of time. Applications for scheduling social media postings, like HootSuite, were heralded as a lifesaver for small and medium-sized businesses since they allowed users to plan social media posts across various platforms up to six months in advance (SMEs). The biggest temptation now is to utilize the same social media posts for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, and other sites, while this still saves a ton of work. This is a mistake. Each platform’s content requires a different approach, which might not be suitable for other platforms. Additionally, the vast majority of business users utilize several platforms.
4. Entering an incorrect sales balance
A major turnoff on social media is overt selling. Make minimal effort. Instead, focus on developing relationships with your prospects as the foundation of a business-to-business connection. Not selling enough is the issue opposite of this. The ultimate goal of social media marketing is to increase leads and sales. Even if it’s not a good idea to be pushy, you should have goals in mind and an understanding of how your social media strategy fits into your overall sales and marketing strategy. Determine whether a prospect is prepared to hear a sales pitch, and don’t be hesitant to do so.
5. Focusing almost on you
Giving and receiving go hand in hand in social media marketing. Avoid the error of just sharing corporate announcements and sales pitches on social media since users value variety and helpful material. If you believe your audience will find other people’s stuff interesting, share it sometimes. “Like” the content of others. Create informative blog entries, then share them on social media. Give your social media fans free downloads of material or vouchers for discounts. Make others laugh, and you’ll begin to establish trusting relationships.
6. Using no analytics
Marketing on social media is beautifully quantifiable. Each of the major platforms’ native applications can track precisely who views your material, where they are coming from, where they are going, and what they are sharing. This is quite useful for figuring out which strategies are successful and which are unsuccessful, as well as which prospects are prepared to move to the “next level” of your relationship. A common and frequently deadly error is failing to use analytics, which dooms SMEs to miss chances and repeatedly commit the same errors.
