Marketing through Social Media can bring a huge return on your investment because social media platforms have millions of active users, which can increase your brand’s reach exponentially. The use of Social media has become common in the current world, driven by technological advancements, especially the smartphone.

Today carrying a smartphone is normal, and people are usually using social media on their smart devices. Therefore, it makes sense to market your products on a platform that is frequently used by your target audience. Marketing on these social platforms will not only increase business sales but will also enhance the brand value.

Despite so many advantages, some businesses in the market say that “Marketing through social media does not work.” However, this is not the case. If it does not work for your business, it means that you are not using it in the right way.

Usually, businesses, especially start-ups, fail to incorporate social media in their marketing channels because of some beginner mistakes. This article will highlight some of the most common social media marketing mistakes that businesses usually make and how to avoid them to ensure success.

Let’s take a look:

1.    Lack of Well-Defined Plan for Social Media Marketing

Before jumping into the market and using social media marketing techniques, the first thing is to develop your social media marketing plan. Experts say that without a proper plan, marketing through social media can be a total waste of effort.

It does make sense as well– a plan is the road map that details the goals you want to achieve and how to achieve with them. Without a plan, your marketing efforts would have no direction, and so they will be bound to fail. A business without a marketing plan would post irregularly, and they won’t know what type of content to post, leading to failure.

Your social media marketing plan should be a document that outlines your SMM goals, the vehicles you are going to use to achieve these goals, the frequency of your ads, the timeline, the budget, KPIs, and the analytical process.

2.   You Are Treating All Social Media Platforms the Same

Not every social media platform is right for your business. If you are running a business and intend to do marketing via social media, it is important for you to post an ad on the right platform.

For instance, if you are targeting people interested in the latest fashion trends, you would do well to post your content on Instagram and TikTok instead of Twitter or LinkedIn. Every social media platform is unique and has its language, norms, audience, and category of content. Figure the difference between various social media platforms by determining which platform does your target audience use most often.

3.   You Are Not Tracking Results

If you are using social media platforms to promote your brand and earn profits, it is essential to analyze your marketing campaigns and assess their level of success.  You should use tools like Google Analytics to keep track of the performance of the marketing campaign and its engagement with the audience.  

Analytics provide you useful insights into what’s working and what’s not. If your analysis shows that a certain ad is not working as you expected it to, you can stop it at any moment to save money and reduce the cost of conversion. This also allows a business to bring changes to strategies and have greater success.

Never expect results from an ad that is posted just now or for the first time. You need to be patient to get outstanding results. Therefore, check and learn from your social media marketing campaigns and move towards the achievement of your business goals.

4.   You Are Not Adding Photos or Videos

If you are not adding photos or uploading videos, you are not using social media marketing correctly. If you want your marketing campaigns to reach a larger audience and also engage them, you should add high-quality photos and videos of your product to the ad.

The effects of images when marketing through social media cannot be overlooked.  Studies say that a man is a visual creature, and research proves it – more than 90 percent of the information that a brain receives is visual. An image is processed 60,000 times quicker than written content, and therefore, marketers use compelling images to create the desired result.

In the same way, uploading a video to your product or service advertised on a social media platform brings your business more customers. Online audiences usually prefer to watch a video rather than reading content. Animoto, an animation tool that is cloud-based, conducted research in which it concluded that online buyers are 4-5 times more interested in watching a video that describes the product rather than reading content. They say watching a product’s video gives more information and also saves time.

5.   You Are Not Communicating with Your Clients

Social media tools are the best ways of marketing your brand, as it allows you to get in contact with your clients. But if you are not using it properly to get in touch with your potential clients, you are not doing the right thing. Most businesses make the mistake of not responding to the comments of clients on their feeds or responds late to customer’s queries.

Consider each comment, query, or feedback of your clients as an opportunity for customer engagement. This will let you grow your number of followers and loyal customers. For example, Carpet Cleaning experienced a 100% increase in customer engagement and sales after they started responding to customer queries promptly.

Our Verdict

Businesses cannot survive without social media marketing, and therefore, they should develop a well thought out social media marketing plan to give their business a boost. Facebook, TikTok, Twitter, and Instagram are some common social media platforms that can help businesses reach a large number of potential clients.

If you are running a business and planning to market it through social media, you should outline the marketing strategy of your business, choose the most appropriate social media platform for your brand, use videos, and images creatively, connect with consumers and use customer feedback to your advantage.

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