Social media is seemingly ubiquitous in today’s world. In fact, 3.78 billion people are now using social media worldwide – a figure that’s increased dramatically over the past year or so. That means businesses both large and small have more opportunities than ever before to connect with their customers.
But this does not mean that using social media is an entirely risk-free endeavour. In order to avoid making a social faux pas without realising it, companies need to operate with extreme caution. The fact of the matter is that there are a number of social media marketing errors that have the potential to utterly undo all of your hard work. Be careful to steer clear of these common blunders in your approach to social media in order to get the most out of your efforts.
Not Engaging With Your Followers
Social media promotion isn’t a “set it and forget it” kind of strategy. If you want to increase your following, you must continuously engage your audience. You must interact with other people if you want to see engagement on your postings. This calls on you to respond to direct messages, leave comments, like other people’s posts, follow accounts in your niche, and reply to comments (with more than just a “like” or an emoji!).
You should research pertinent hashtags and interact with those accounts to expand your network. While it’s true that some consumers may slavishly support a brand they adore even if it doesn’t answer their inquiries or reply to their remarks, most clients desire a more intimate relationship with brands through social media. Your clients are likely to leave if you disregard them. Even if they decide not to unfollow, they won’t be as likely to interact with your posts, which means less people will see them. Engagement is essential to, so to say, beating the algorithm.
Posting Offensive Content
This should be a no-brainer, but brands do sometimes find themselves in hot water when they post anything that could be deemed offensive. While a recent social media conduct survey found that 66.8% of participants never or rarely publish posts and comments relating to divisive topics, some brands think they can do no wrong. In other cases, businesses simply don’t think about how an innocuous post could be perceived.
You can never be too cautious about what you write in this age where cancel culture has turned into a major source of anxiety for many individuals. First, it’s a good idea to create a social media code of conduct for your brand and to specify who is permitted to post on these accounts. Prior to becoming online, all content should go through an approval process. Once an employee leaves, you should be careful to limit access to your accounts. And you should always err on the side of caution if you’re having problems determining whether a post might be objectionable. Keep in mind that your postings will be more inclusive and inoffensive the more diverse the audience you have. Don’t post it if you’re unsure.
Failing to Stay Consistent
Consistency is key when it comes to social media. It’s a never-ending job, which can make it all too easy for us to forget about posting for days or even weeks. That, in turn, can cause followers to forget about you. Posting consistently will allow you to keep your brand in the public eye and can often increase your overall engagement. Social media algorithms tend to like accounts that post consistently.
That doesn’t always mean you have to post every single day, but it does mean you should adhere to some type of schedule. A good way to prioritize consistency is to develop a content calendar and follow it as closely as possible. Not only will this keep you on-track, but it’ll help you plan ahead and cross-promote with ease.
Neglecting to acknowledge the fact that Story mentions
It’s necessary to respond to DMs, but mentioning someone in a story is just as vital. Don’t overlook the many services that the Instagram ecosystem has to offer; doing so would be a huge mistake because they are an excellent approach to continue to communicate with your clients. On the other hand, this does not imply that you need to keep a constant vigil on mentions of the Story.
You are able to configure Story mention triggers within ManyChat, which means that you will be notified of every mention and will have the opportunity to engage in conversation with the person who made it! Using the Flow Builder tool, it is simple to establish a trigger that will be activated whenever a Story “@” references your company.
ManyChat gives you the ability to establish an automated procedure that will result in continued engagement with clients, even if all you want to do is send a brief message saying “thank you for mentioning us!”
Even though it’s a clear no-no when it comes to creating a brand, many companies still don’t bother to respond to customers’ comments on their posts. (It is difficult to determine if this is because they do not place a focus on comment moderation or because they simply do not have the time to do so.)
Regardless, communicating with your audience in the comments area is a great method to create rapport with your business, even if you’re dealing with remarks that are critical in nature. It might help you save time to use the Comments Growth Tool that ManyChat provides. This is a visual guide that will help you learn more about it as well as how to set it up.
A lack of uniformity in posting
It is well known that consistency is the cornerstone of successful online marketing, and growth on a social media platform such as Instagram is no exception.
Recently, the social media platform reached the milestone of 1.3 billion active users, which provides businesses with access to a massive audience. Although having such a large user base is a significant benefit, it also means that an increasing number of companies are competing with one another to attract the focus of that audience.
When you provide material on an irregular schedule, it decreases your chances of getting in front of potential customers who have shopping intent, and it gives your competitors an advantage over you.
Consider the fact that 59 percent of adults in the United States use Instagram on a daily basis. It is essential to post on a consistent basis if you want people to continue to think of your brand. If you don’t have the time to do it manually, use automated solutions to assist you stick to a posting schedule so that you don’t fall behind.
Attempting to expand your presence on social media without a plan is analogous to attempting to dig a hole without a shovel; it’s difficult, it takes too much time, and there is obviously a more efficient way.
Even if you’re just getting started, you may get off to a good start by familiarising yourself with the requirements for effective marketing on Instagram. Next, as the foundation of your marketing plan, you should focus on obtaining and maximising the effectiveness of high-qualifying leads.
You may include automation to help you streamline and grow your processes as you capture and cultivate more leads. Automation can also help you scale your operations. The ManyChat bots are designed to assist you in achieving both of these objectives with the precision that is required to generate great interactions with your customers.
Providing No Value
Although consistency is important, you shouldn’t post just for the sake of posting. If and when you do, you’ll probably notice that those posts don’t receive as much attention as others. Why would this be? Because you probably don’t have a good enough reason for posting – and your posts may provide very little value to your audience. Whether you’re posting a low-quality stock image to promote your business or your captions don’t encourage engagement, your audience probably won’t respond very well.
That can result in ignored posts, dwindling follower counts, and a lack of conversions. With every post you make, you’ll want to ask yourself how you can solve a customer problem, educate a follower, or share something special about your brand. When you can provide something valuable, customers will look forward to every post, story, tweet, and video you make because their lives will be improved by them in some way.
Social media marketing should undoubtedly be part of your overall promotional strategy. But if you want to be effective on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and Tiktok, you’ll need to make smart decisions. By avoiding these aforementioned mistakes, you’ll have a better handle on how to interact with your followers, improve your brand perception, and drive traffic and sales.
Originally posted 2022-07-02 15:41:33.