You can’t just put up a few profiles and expect to reap the rewards of social media marketing. It takes far more than that to do it effectively. Here are a few social media don’ts that you need to be aware of and how to do the opposite to make sure you are on the right track:
- Taking the Trial and Error Approach - This is most evident in the lack of goals set for the social media campaign. It’s almost as if anything goes. What are you trying to achieve with a social media campaign? Nonprofits may want to set goals for extra traffic or donations. For-profit businesses may want to track the number of shares, likes, and sales. Set monthly goals to achieve for the best results.
- Thinking Anyone Can Run a Social Media Campaign - The secretary may have great typing skills, but there is more to social media campaigns than writing a blog or posting a status update. You need knowledgeable people who know about search engine optimization, social media automation, and are aware of the Google algorithm changes on your team. Otherwise, you can do more harm than good.
- Not Setting Aside a Budget - Without a set amount of money that you plan to spend, you can quickly end up spending more than you thought was necessary with advertising campaigns. This is a medium-sized project that requires budget considerations. It isn't something that can be delegated to a secretary to do within "dead periods" either. It needs its own budget and the right people to enact it.
- Failing to Manage Social Media Activities - It’s likely that one of the biggest social media mistakes someone can make attempting a social media campaign willy-nilly is to waste their time and your’s. By providing automation tools and a schedule of social media activities to do each day, you can make activities more efficient. You can also quickly supervise activities at the end of the week by running through a spreadsheet of a list of daily tasks completed.
- Not Tracking Measurables - How many new visitors did you gain from a specific social media channel? Which campaigns and social media sites work best with your demographic? Who is showing up and why? You should have a set number of posts, comments, shares, likes, friending, and following numbers that you can look at each month to measure activity and then relate it back to your business goals for your website, for instance sales for the month.
- Being Too Rigid or Inflexible - Lastly, you have to be open to new ways of doing things if at first they don't work. If the keywords you chose did not gain you the exposure you wanted, it’s time to change them. When Google ranks mobile sites higher, it’s time to take some of your budget and make your site mobile-friendly. What worked in the past won’t always work in the future and that’s the nature of social media marketing
Businesses eager to capitalize on the exposure of big ticket social media sites, may attempt to jump into social media marketing without having a good idea of what they are trying to accomplish or having the necessary expertise in-house. Without defined objectives and a plan to succeed, it’s more likely they can stumble over social media mistakes that are otherwise very easily avoided. Avoid these social media don’ts and your business can save a lot of money and time and tons of frustration too.
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