“I am optimizing my website for social media like my competitors are doing, but they are more successful in their efforts and their pages are more popular and driving more business than mine. Why?”
You can easily discover such business people anxious to get the answer of this ‘Why’?
Take a long breath first to cool yourself down because this blog intends to help you discover the reasons that are mainly responsible for the failure of most social media campaigns.
Here they are.
1# Having no social media strategy-
Social media can connect them with their target audience, this is something that almost every business owner knows today. And most have created their accounts on different social media platforms to exploit business opportunities available on those platforms.
However, most of them don’t know how to use social media to connect with their target audience and influence them. So, they make mistakes that create more trouble than any benefit. Many social media campaigns fail because of those mistakes.
If you don’t want to fail in your efforts, you should first create your social media strategy.
Here are some points that will help you develop your social media strategy.
Who your target audience is
Know first who your target audience is. Are they men or women or both? Are they young, middle-aged, or old people? Are they children? The content must be prepared considering the age group and the gender of the target audience. If everybody is your target audience, you must make sure the content does not offend anybody and is appropriate for everyone.
What content you can post
You must decide in advance what content you will share with your target audience. A mistake that most business owners commit is they use the SMO platform to promote their products only. This is a wrong strategy. Promote your products, but not every time. Instead, use this platform to discuss the questions that customers often ask. This will increase the credibility of your posts. Moreover, use visuals like images, infographics, and videos. These content pieces will catch more attention and will be helpful to increase engagement.
However, be careful in selecting any visuals for your campaign. Don’t use any content until you become sure that the content is relevant and will not create any kind of dispute and cause embarrassment for your business.
Can a visual cause embarrassment for your brand – is this what you are thinking right now? If yes, I will say not embarrassment, but big embarrassment. Many companies have to face trolling by their target social media followers and target audience because of their social media shares and have to apologize later for their mistakes.
To make my point clear, I would want to tell you about a social media post that created a big uproar in social media world and caused big harm to the post owner. To wish the world happy new year 2014, a leading beverage company shared the map of the world on its social media account along with the happy new year message, but the map it shared stirred anger in two countries Russia and Ukraine because the map did not include Crimea in Russia. So, the company had to apologize for the wrong map that hurt the sentiment of the people.
How frequently you should post
Consistency matters. Many entrepreneurs are inconsistent in their social media campaigns. They post several posts a day and then forget to post for many days. This is not a mistake but a bluder. If you have not much to share, share one or two posts daily, but don’t become invisible after posting a few days consistently. To fix this problem, you can make a monthly social media calendar in advance so that you will have an idea what to share when.
2# Having the same strategy for every social networking website–
Where most business owners don’t make any social media strategy, some make but they use the same strategy for every social networking platform. They don’t put any efforts to know the nature of different social media platforms. This backfires, and they become the prey of users’ anger. So, they don’t get the expected results from their campaigns.
So, this is important to have different strategies for different social media websites. Before forming the strategy for any platform, you need to understand the nature of the website, the mindset of the users, and what sort of content is posted on that particular website. To make my point clear, I would like to give you the example of three major social networking websites – Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. On Twitter, you have to share your message in 140 characters, so you have to prepare your content in a way that you can convey your message in under the limit of the characters. On Facebook, you can post just anything. On LinkedIn, you connect with professionals, so your message should look very professional.
3# Talking negatively
As boss is always right in office, customers are always right in the market. You cannot talk to them in a negative tone even if they become rude. If you notice somebody is talking rudely, instead of talking to them in the same manner, you should make them realize they are wrong. You should do this in a very professional and witty manner. If you talk in a negative tone with them, this will affect the mind of other prospective buyers as well. They will think they may have to suffer the same fate if they criticize you for anything. Therefore, they will skip you.
You must remember this always that you are using the social networking platform to influence your target audience and not to displease them.
4# Ignoring the voice of your target audience
Many business owners are accustomed to ignoring the messages of their target audience. They don’t reply unless they see any benefit in replying. This is again a very wrong practice. Whenever anybody likes your post or makes any positive comment, don’t forget to say thanks to him/her. If the comment gives you any suggestion, do say thanks for the valuable suggestion and promise to consider it, and if anybody gives a negative feedback, don’t delete the comment, but give your response in a very professional way with an apology for the inconvenience caused to the customer. This will increase your value in the eyes of your social media followers.
5# Ignoring social media analytics
When you start your campaign, this is important to keep checking the performance of everything you do. This gives you an insight if you are doing the things in the right way or wrong. Social media analytics lets you know which activities people are appreciating and which they are ignoring. This will be highly helpful for you to prepare your social media strategies. There are many tools that allow you to monitor your social media campaign. Some are like Viralwoot, Cyfe, Tailwind, and Buffer. You can take help of any.
By avoiding above-mentioned social media optimization mistakes and following the given suggestions, you can run a successful social media campaign that will help you in increasing your ROI and having a better relationship with your existing and prospective customers. If you have anything to add, do mention that in the comment box that will educate everybody, including us.