Social media has proven to be the best platform for a business to connect with customers – new, existing, and prospective. With the world still to come out of the Covid-19 pandemic, the usage, application, and relevance of social media have accelerated multi-fold.
It is obvious for businesses to have social media strategy chalked out to the tee. The master plan of creating, posting, and engaging would typically include social content guidelines, posting cadence, social media marketing campaigns, creative plans, and engagement strategy.
But just having a master plan isn’t enough. Its success depends on many factors. There could be mistakes that the marketing team might be making regarding the social media strategy, knowingly or unknowingly.
Here is a list of top mistakes people are making in their social media strategy. Make sure you consider a mitigation plan in place to avoid these.
Lack of Consideration of Online Reputation Management
The success of a social media account must include measurement by engagement. Their success is analyzed by how many likes they have and how many people have commented. Brands still fail to have a process in place to address those who have commented. Responding to comments can go a long way in building relationships and increasing engagement. It’s a low-hanging fruit that marketers often miss.
Sporadic Postings
It’s common for brands to flag off the social media campaign with all fanfare, but that motivation quickly wanes due to multiple reasons. Inconsistency in social media postings could hurt the social media footprint of the brand. It adversely alters the momentum for the brand, changes the audience’s perception of the brand, and most importantly affects the algorithm through which the posts appear on the platform. Marketers need to have a clear-cut posting plan.
Not Customizing According to the Platform
Each of the social media platforms has a separate relevance, audience consumption, and preference. Hence, it is pertinent to keep a slice of the social media strategy that customizes the posts at the tactical level for different platforms. One fundamental difference between posts on different platforms is the character limit – if any, and image optimization. Please consider each platform as a unique branch of the tree that you want to see growing strong which is watered by your social media strategy.
Being Mechanical
All marketers get thrilled about automation. However, too much reliance on auto-generated posts looks orchestrated, rather than real. Such an approach leads to potential prospects overlooking the posts. To engage your entire audience base, the real brand shouldn’t get hidden in the pursuit of saving some bucks through automation. Consider keeping the content fresh and human.
Tip – share what happens behind the scenes and feature employee/customer stories authentically.
Not Creating Localized Content
For a brand with a global presence, the global offices generally tend to dictate proceedings. This doesn’t allow localization of the content. Brands are missing a trick when social media content for the local audience, by local teams, doesn’t get priority. “Think global, act local” isn’t always a cliché after all – take it seriously.
Not Utilizing Appropriate Influencers for Campaigns
Selecting influencers generally happens on the number of followers that the influencer has. This is where the campaign’s key result areaswouldn’t be met – a sports brand can’t use beauty influencers and travel influencers would completely get ignored if they are seen talking about parenting. Appropriate influencers, plus the categories that they have truly derived certain expertise about, will be a recipe for a successful social media campaign.
Not Posting Off-Brand Content
Social media marketers sometimes find it difficult to come up with enough content relevant to the brand. To fill the gaps, they can choose to post content that while possibly interesting, informative, or entertaining, is disconnected from their brand. If there is a trending topic that is not entirely related to the brand, it can still be considered for posting content. Something like user-generated content periodically might keep your social media presence interesting to the audiences.
Jumping on the Bandwagon
It is easy to follow a trend and post content on trending topics. But can your brand bring out a different angle to the trend? Creating content blindly following the trend is merely “checking the box.” When you add something beyond what the others are posting, you are more likely to attract eyeballs. Maybe consider giving a spin-off to the trending story.
Conclusion – Are You Ready to Revisit Your Social Media Strategy?
The above list is surely not intended to intimidate fellow social media marketers. Revisit your social media blueprint to ensure you are not committing these top mistakes that people are making in their social media strategy. Small tweaks could make it all fine!
