5 Traps to Avoid with Your Social Media Marketing Campaign
July 21, 2018
Social media has become a huge part of the way that businesses market themselves. Whether you run an ecommerce site or a brick and mortar shop with an online presence to manage, social media helps you get the word out about your store and grow your brand. Unfortunately, starting out with social media can be confusing for some businesses and mistakes get made easily. Here are 5 of the social media marketing traps to avoid this year.
1. Mismanaging Negative Feedback: Negative feedback will happen no matter how wonderful your customer service, product, or business model is. There are two wrong ways to deal with negative feedback, and you might be tempted to try both, especially if you’re new to online reviews. The first is to ignore the comment or try to delete it, this can backfire when customers notice your avoidance, and it’s also quite rude. The second reaction business owners have is to comment back negatively out of defensiveness. Unfortunately, this can come across argumentative and create customer service issues for your business.
So, how do you deal with negative reviews on social media? Address them as quickly, calmly, and politely as possible. If there’s a problem with a product, offering a solution such as an exchange or store credit can be helpful. If your store doesn’t have a return policy, then at least offer an apology for the customer’s poor experience. If the review is regarding customer service, you can apologize and offer to reach out via phone or email to rectify the matter.
Remember, all consumers can see your feedback, negative or otherwise. So, the way that you react to it will define the way that the public views your business and customer service skills. Treat all customers the way you would want to be treated, and your social media status will be positive, even if a few reviews aren’t.
2. Forgetting About the Target Audience: Marketing 101 is always know your target audience. This helps you market your product, service, or brand to a specific group of people in a way that appeals to them specifically. For example, the target audience for a tampon company is teens and women aged 13-45 typically. Knowing that this is the target audience allows you to shape ads which suit women in this age group, rather than all humans.
Just as you would create a target audience for a commercial, print ad or billboard campaign, your social media should reflect the audience you’re targeting. Your Facebook should have images which are attractive to your target audience, your YouTube channel should include content that your target audience will be drawn to watch, and your Instagram account should be full of images which make your target audience want to follow you and share the pictures you post.
3. Too Much Self Promotion: Your social media presence should advertise your business, but not to the point where customers begin to think of your posts as spam. There’s enough ads floating around on Facebook and other social media platforms; make your posts unique, quirky, funny, or interactive. Each time you post, your brand and user profile photo is being seen by your followers. That’s enough brand presence without the need for a, “come on down to Happy Harry’s Speaker World today!”
Some fun ways to marketing without making it seem like marketing is to include customer polls, contests, and videos in your content. This makes posts fresh, and keeps your audience intent on interacting and watching for your next update, rather than dreading it.
4. Not Being Human Enough: It’s easy to get caught up in the professionalism and business attitude of running a company online, but remember, your social media account is another face for your brand. Just as a receptionist offers a first impression to those who call or walk through the door of an office building, your social media presence provides a glimpse of your business and how it interacts with consumers.
Add a little personality to your account by including photos of employees, the office space, and by using language that sounds the way you would in a human conversation, not a pamphlet. Remember, you can be friendly without being unprofessional, and that’s what most consumers are looking for.
5. Not Keeping Content Flowing: There’s nothing more frustrating to a consumer than hearing about an upcoming sale, checking your Twitter feed and finding no information, or a customer wanting to know your business hours, visiting your Facebook page and learning that hours of operation haven’t been updated yet.
Keep your social media in tune with your official website and remember to post hours, menus, and links to where customers can shop. Always have a phone number or alternative method of communication available and remember to update weekly. Posting too much content might come off as spammy, but posting too little can make your business seem unprofessional, out of touch with technology, or “too busy” for your customers.
Whether you are brand new to social media, or looking to improve active accounts, these tips can help you avoid common marketing mistakes. Using a social media account can help improve traffic to your official website, boost your ranking through search engine optimization, and make customer interaction easier to manage and oversee. Not having a social media account for your business in this day and age can hurt your chances at outranking competitors, so take the plunge if you haven’t already.