An ever-increasing number of people are looking to leverage the power of social media. This is understandable, considering social media is at the crossroads of ideas, information, and relationships. As with any market, brands must put themselves out there in front of as many potential customers as possible. With the number of people using social media skyrocketing, marketers have stressed the effectiveness of social media marketing for their companies. And to effectively capture customers and increase brand awareness, a sound strategy is crucial, which, in this case, would be a social media strategy.
In this article, we’re going to cover all the common mistakes to avoid to create a cohesive and compelling strategy across your social media presence.
Neglecting Visual Appeal
Strong visual appeal can be why people follow you, like your content, and eventually become your customers. Because visuals are the first impression a brand has on its audience, it can make or break your strategy.
Visual appeal is so important because visual media has been shown to increase engagement across most social media platforms. For example, on LinkedIn, people are 98% more likely to engage with a post with images. Similarly, tweets that contain visual content receive three times more engagement than normal. It is also important to stand out from your competitors visually.
So what are some ways to create highly-engaging visual content? First and foremost, to ensure your content is visually appealing, avoid out-of-focus, low-quality, blurry images and videos. If you don’t have the resources, check out some stock image websites for high-quality content. Focus on stock illustrations because they serve as great visual assets. People process visual elements much better, so illustrations, especially, can help them understand things much better. This is backed by research that shows people are 323% more likely to complete tasks when text is accompanied by illustrations.
Disregarding Analytics
Your social media strategy should be in a state of constant improvement. But to improve, you need to know how you’re performing in the first place. Social media analytics is one of the best ways to see how your brand is performing online. But that’s not all it does. Studies show that 56% of marketers use social media analytics to understand their audience, while 49% use it to develop content for their social media strategies. Not utilizing this useful tool means you’re likely depriving yourself of finding out what is working and what isn’t.
Thankfully, it’s very easy to acquire this data with the multitude of tools available to us. These tools show real-time performance data, for example, the insights section of Facebook or the detailed analytics offered by YouTube Studio. These sections on different social media platforms offer statistics on how well your content is performing. You can also use third-party apps for the same purpose.
By closely following your engagement, you can see the type of content that speaks to your audience. This will help you adjust your strategy accordingly and make it easy to identify well-performing content.
Ignoring Audience Engagement
Social media is a two-way street. You provide the content whilst your audience engages with said content. However, one of the most crucial mistakes brands make in terms of their marketing strategy is the failure to engage with their audience. Engagement and building a strong online community with your followers is critical to success in 2023, according to 90% of social media marketers.
Similarly, creating the type of content that sparks conversations is worthwhile. This not only drives engagement for your content but also increases interest among people unfamiliar with your brand. However, if your content is not receiving any engagement from your followers, it might be time to rethink your approach. At the same time, avoid deleting comments, even negative ones. Be sure to respond to both positive and negative comments. But be warm and courteous.
Some other ways to drive engagement would be hosting giveaways, holding live streams, sending personalized messages, and Q&A sessions to answer questions.
Overlooking Platform Differences
There are many different social media platforms, each with its strengths and weaknesses. They all provide unique features and opportunities. They also may have differences in terms of the demographics they cater to. Thus, at times, they may require different strategies. For example, Twitter is dominated by written content, whereas Instagram focuses on visual media.
One of the biggest mistakes people make in terms of social media marketing is constantly recycling and cross-posting the same stuff on different platforms. An Instagram user survey indicated a negative user experience when users came across content recycled from different platforms, like TikTok. This is especially true for platforms prioritizing different mediums. Posting Instagram content on LinkedIn would not make sense. Thus, to avoid being shadow banned, you should try creating original content catered to a specific platform. This will ensure your content is not recycled, low-quality content with platform mismatches.
Brand Transparency and Authenticity
To get a loyal following, you need to build a transparent brand because customers are increasingly looking for more authenticity in the brands they choose to support. More transparent businesses are also more likely to have loyal customers. Hence, ignoring brand transparency as a part of your marketing strategy can negatively affect your image and ability to gain brand loyalists. The excessive use of automation can also harm your brand. If you become too dependent on bots, you might lose the human touch that lends authenticity to your brand.
There are many different ways to interact with your followers on all the different social media platforms, from stories to live streams to simple comments. Hence, the best way to build transparency would be to incorporate genuine and consistent interaction with your followers on social media. Once you start doing this, you’ll immediately see positive results.
Conclusion
Social media marketing requires great care and attention to detail. Thus, avoiding the previously mentioned common mistakes can enable you to create a compelling social media presence and strengthen your brand. Remember, visual appeal, data-driven decisions, transparency, and engagement are key to an effective strategy.
Neha Nidhi
Share your thoughts