When Social Media Tactics Go Wrong
What Potential Pitfalls to Avoid on Social Media Marketing
Social media can change the trend of a business’ growth online. Using the wrong methods, however, can make your movement fall and go down. How do you avoid those mistakes and make your start-up fare well on social marketing?
There are many social networks to choose from when planning your advertising campaign. Don’t get excited and try them all at the same time, as not all social networks are the same. This is true even if they have similar features such as the ever-present ‘Like’ and ‘Comment.’ Each one targets different audiences and works with specific types of content.
Google+, for example, isthe social site for ‘techie’ experts, engineers, web designers, software developers, and students. It caters more to males with visitors counting up to 69.62%, according to the infograph from Zintro. Pinterest, on the other hand, is the opposite. Its visitor demographics are 80% women and 20% men, 50% of whom have children. It is therefore likely for a mom with children living on the Midwest to have a Pinterest account.
The data above illustrates how distinct each social network can be with each other. It is more important to focus your campaign on one or two social media sites ONLY so you can reach your target audience. If you went wild to join all social networks, you’ll just end up unable to do anything to make your strategy succeed. The adage, “Don’t bite off more than you can chew,” works well for this situation. Multitasking is no use because 1) you have to update your social media sites, and 2) you have to engage your customers in a meaningful manner.
Choosing the best social network for your business is the right strategy to take. Where are your target consumers located online? Are they active in social networking? Which sites do they frequent? Direct your strategies here and make sure your regular customers know they can reach you online and interact with you on the company page.
Hoping that your audience will engage with your content is not advisable, too. There should be an effort on your part to make your audience engage with your content and share it to others. How do you get them to do this? First,write your content short and your message sweet. That doesn’t mean that your blog articles or podcast sessions can be incomplete and haphazardly done. Make your message concise and creative. Phrase your points in a direct manner. Most importantly, write as if you’re talking to them. This makes communication with easier. It also helps when you concentrate on topics that are interesting to them.
The technique above may work for B2B companies. For B2C companies, pictures and videos work better. Starbucks certainly got the formula for success as evidenced by the customer and fan engagement on its Facebook page:
Pictures and videos are indeed drivers of customer engagement. Studies show that people click on them more, rather than links and text posts. The numbers prove that this conclusion is correct, as the fourth picture got more than 30,000 likes. The inimitable frappuccino by itself fetches a large number of likes because it is delicious. The half-price promo contributed to the popularity factor, though. It perked up interest, made people talk about it, and share the news to their own friends.
Showing a human face to your followers is also another strategy to take note of. The first picture on the top left demonstrated how effective this is. Although it’s not a picture, it still generated a lot of engagement. This is because the link encouraged fans to participate in a cause that Starbucks has sponsored. Engagement increased as a result, and caused many to participate.
This effect is also shown on the photo album, Starbucks Global Month of Service. It engaged people because it shows that Starbucks gives back to the community and strives to “create a positive change in their local neighborhoods.” Your business can adopt this strategy as your own, even if you don’t have charity projects. The target here is to make your customers feel a bond with your business. What you can do is to take pictures of your staff doing their best to perform their tasks. Show followers how your staff creates the products you sell or take pictures of them smiling as they give the order to customers.
Combine promos with pictures, videos and other content. This encourages people to take notice, click your content, and rush to your store.
Getting customers to engage when they don’t know you is difficult. Before you provide them content, introduce yourself first with effective online advertising. Get yourself promoted with the help of influencers or the big people on the social networks. These influencers have thousands of followers. If you manage to convince an influencer with a thousand followers to promote you, there’s a chance you’ll get more followers on your own page. You can get by even if only a hundred or even fifty people ‘like’ your content and engage with your content, as long as they’re genuinely interested.
Another way you can promote yourself is to encourage positive word of mouth. This works best if you have many happy customers satisfied with your work. When customers are satisfied with your business, they refer other people to go to you. This makes it important that you serve high-quality products and combine it with professional and personable customer service. Once you get glowing reviews, offer them your business card that has your contact details and the links to your social networking pages. They’ll look for you online, and since they know you already, you’ll attract them with your creative and well thought-out content.
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