1. Not having a Clear Goal and KPIs

One of the main reasons people are not sure about the impact of social media on their business is that they don’t have a clear set of goals, so they don’t know what to expect from social media marketing.

Creating those goals, and some KPIs (key performance indicators) to track can results in:

Increased Awareness: Although increasing your awareness is the first step, your sales won’t just increase from getting people to know you.

Expert marketers suggest that you should be building relationships with your potential customers. During the awareness phase, define your KPIs you should expect. The KPIs can be the number of likes, shares, follower count, impressions, reach, profile visits, etc.

Increased Engagement:One of most important goals of your social media marketing plan is to build an Engagement metrics. This shows a great deal about how much people trust you and your influence on them, which in turn can result in new customers.

Important KPIs to pay attention to are the number of clicks, sign-ups, downloads, etc.

What to do: Plan your social media marketing goals accordingly. First try to increase your follower base, the number of profile views or website visitors, the number of mentions, and hopefully the number of leads.

Then get started to increase engagement by promoting what your followers or leads are interested in. A free giveaway, an informative infographic, blog articles can do wonders.

2. Being on the WRONG Social Media Network

Every Network has their own audience with different demographics and behavioural characteristics. People have different expectations from each network.

Before diving right in to all the different channels, take some time to study each of them, and the people on them, and the type of content they expect to see. Then decide which one is worth it for your business.

Facebook has over 3 billions of active monthly users. This is the greatest number of users across all social media networks. Facebook has a number of marketing features available, that includes their feed, where updates can be posted, Video retargeting campaigns, paid advertising used by thousands of companies around the world.

Instagram has over 1 billion monthly active users, and belongs to the most popular social networks worldwide.

According to SproutSocial:

• 51% female users, and 49% male

• 80% of Instagram users discover new products and services on the platform

• 65% of users visited brands website or app

• 46% of users purchased online or offline

Twitter has 330 million monthly active users. Of these, more than 40 percent use the service on a daily basis. Approximately six of every 10 (63 percent) Twitter users worldwide are between 35 and 65 years old (sprout,2020). The average adult Twitter user in the US appears to fall closer to the lower end of that range – with a median age of 40.

Pinterest: 45% of all women online use Pinterest. This makes it a great source of content for female users. If you rely on your website to fuel your sales and marketing, Pinterest is a great tool for increasing links back to your website, thus driving more traffic.

LinkedIn is all about building networks and connections. It’s not only about who you know, but about who your connections know. You can grow your brand through word of mouth, and is the top-rated social network for lead generation.

3. Too much content, not enough substance

This is one of the MOST COMMON MISTAKES! Business posting just about anything and everything on Social Media on constantly, then wondering why the audience aren’t engaging.

Every business, and every following is different. To be successful on Social Media, it isn’t just about posting as much as possible, but to post valuable content. Always remember Quality over Quantity. It’s more important to create quality content on a couple of key channels than it is to have a presence on every single platform.

4. Not listening to your Audience

To get the desired ROI and exposure start listening to what people have to say about your brand or services. Respond to your audience. There are many ways to address your customers interests and needs for your social media content.

Monitor your follower’s activities: High engagement could signal that your post is working. Learn from your well-performing posts and try to replicate them. Utilize social media management tools such as Eclincher, Hootsuite, Hubspot to have the necessary insights about your audience.

Monitor your competitor’s engagement: It’s ideal to monitor their social media activities and see what content gets them the most engagement. Keeping an eye on your competitors can also help you monitor what’s going on in your industry. If they have something big happening, they will most likely be sharing it on social media.

5. Not having a social media marketing strategy

An effective social media marketing strategy can guide any business in the right direction. With a proper plan of action, it will certainly lead to a greater ROI. Have specific goals, budgets and a concrete plan of action that outlines your goals, and how to achieve them, and you’re sure to succeed.

It is crucial to address all the social media marketing mistakes as early as possible to be more effective. These common mistakes can hold your business back. It is no longer just B2B, now it is C2B (customer to business). With so much information online, businesses no longer have to search for customers, Customers are constantly on the search for products/services. They are in control now. So make the right adjustments, make yourself present on the right platform, market to the right people with valuable content and you’ll definitely reap the benefits.