Social media has the ability to become a profitable and integral part of your marketing engine. When done correctly, it can develop an authentic connection with your audience, increase your website conversion rate and act as a tool to build brand awareness. However, if it’s not approached correctly it can be ineffective, cumbersome  and even damaging to your business.

It has become increasingly difficult for businesses to establish how or where to best focus their efforts on social media. It can be difficult to get to the bottom of why their social media efforts aren’t showing them the results that they need, often leading to wasted time and frustration. 

Before you get overwhelmed by the many ‘things to do’ on social media, let’s start with what not to do.

We’ve compiled 7 common mistakes we see when it comes to social media marketing, along with tips on how to fix them and start seeing social media success. 

1. Starting without a social media strategy 

Your strategy is your game plan. It’s the blueprint for successfully reaching your goals and objectives. It’s the difference between scrambling and ‘hoping’ your content resonates, versus clearly defining success and implementing purposeful actions to get there. 

If you don’t start with a plan you’ll likely experience minimal reach, impressions, website traffic and lead conversions. A social media strategy will help you define what success looks like for your business, and set you up to hit those goals. The upfront research and planning involved to create a strategy allows you to establish your target audience, save time, set your brand apart from competitors, create a consistent look and feel, and prioritize the right platforms for your business to focus on. 

Now you know that a strategy is a #MustHave but how do you get started? It begins with research. At Flipp, we begin with a kick-off to get aligned on where our client has been, where they’re going, and what their goals and challenges are. Next, we conduct industry and competitor research and weave our findings into the world of social.   

When preparing for your social media strategy here are 3 questions to ask yourself to get started:

• What does social media success look like to you?
• Who are you trying to reach and what do their social media behaviours look like?
• Who are your top competitors? How are they performing on social media? Think about both their strengths and weaknesses.

This is just the beginning when it comes to putting together a comprehensive social media strategy, so don’t be scared to engage with a social media strategist to help set you up for success. 

2. Focusing on quantity over quality 

During the initial rise of social media marketing, the trend for growth was to create and post as much content as you could. Now, it’s become far more beneficial for brands to focus on creating high quality, purposeful content rather than simply pumping out as much as possible. Businesses often mention that they post a lot but don’t see a return on investment – why is this happening? 

The short answer is that high quality content helps you retain your followers and increases your overall reach. The longer answer is that the algorithm on most social platforms is designed  to show you content you are most likely to engage with. It works by collecting data on what you’ve liked, shared, commented, saved or sent to a friend and showing you related or similar content from other social media accounts. With this in mind, the goal of your social media efforts should be firmly rooted in creating content that your target audience will want to engage with rather than pushing out as much content as you can. 

Tips for improving your content; 

• Use unique and high quality images
• Create posts that inspire interaction 
• Maintain consistency to your brand’s overall look and feel 
• Understand what your profile will look like as a whole, rather than focusing on one image 

3. Boosting the wrong posts 

Businesses often boost the wrong posts for their target audience. Social media is ever changing and so is the way that consumers engage and interact with it. However, one thing we know is that engagement is the driving force of reach and impressions. Even though you may think you know what your audience wants on any given day – why not let them tell you directly?

Stop boosting content that you think people will resonate with and start boosting content that is resonating already. Be sure to look at the engagement of a post before putting money behind it. If the engagement is high you are much more likely to reach a broader audience than you would if you boosted a post with low engagement. To sum it up: give the people what they want. 

4. Not responding and engaging with your audience 

Again, remember that engagement is key to broadening your reach, impressions and your overall brand awareness. Ignoring comments, story mentions or tagged posts is a missed opportunity, and can even be detrimental to your social media goals. It’s important to schedule time to log on and interact with your audience on a daily basis. 

What does engagement look like? 

• Reposting user generated content to your story or feed
• Reacting and responding to direct messages
• Replying to comments
• Engaging with your geotag
• Supporting the community around you by interacting with their posts

The goal of most social networks is to connect with the people around you – so get out there and engage! 

5. Only posting branded content… or posting none at all 

According to GWI, since 2020, followers have been wanting more raw, unfiltered content, which they can relate to more than constant glitzy backdrops and overly curated feeds. Though there was a time for only posting highly filtered and branded content – consumers are craving connection and looking to have a more ‘human to human’ experience online. However, studies have also shown that branded content is critical for brand awareness and brand advocacy. So how do you balance it?

When you develop a social media strategy, you will establish your content pillars (the themes that guide what you’re posting about), along with your posting frequency. Both your pillars and your frequency will help you decipher the volume of unbranded imagery, culture-related and user generated content (UGC) that you should be posting alongside your more curated branded posts. This will look different for every brand, but the goal is to focus on the overall look and feel of your profile. Overall, you’ll want your profile to include a comprehensive mix of content with a consistent feel. To better understand, take a look at the brands featured below and the cadence in which they post content. Though none of the three are identical to each other, their posts represent a mix of UGC, branded text posts and lifestyle photography. As you view each profile, take note of how you feel more connected to the brand as you engage with their feed.

Our tip for you is to start imagining yourself as your target audience. What first impression does the profile give you? If you were seeing your page for the first time, how would it make you feel? Can you connect to the people behind the brand?

6. Not keeping up with social media and consumer trends 

Social media is constantly changing and adapting to consumer behaviours. It can be tricky to keep up. If you are not regularly tweaking your strategy and your efforts based on the changes and goals of each social network, your efforts to reach new audiences can fall behind in comparison to your competitors. 

Focus on the evolution of each social network you’re active on and study the way that your target audience is spending their time on it. Here are a few questions to ask yourself when thinking of consumer behaviours;

• What times of day are they most active on social media? 
• Do they scroll through the Instagram feed or are they focused on Instagram Reel content and story posts? 
• Do they spend a lot of their time on LinkedIn? 
• What do they consider valuable content? 

Read our blog post about 2022 social media trends, updates, and consumer behaviours and start adjusting your strategy accordingly. 

7. Not analyzing your results 

Without frequently reviewing your actionable insights, your social media marketing efforts are lacking purpose. There is a lot of beneficial information hiding behind your analytics. By measuring the information you’re getting from your audience and post performance, you can continuously improve your strategy. 

At Flipp, we revisit the results of our content and social media management tactics with our clients each month to establish our wins, misses and the opportunities we have for the month ahead. This allows us to create effective content by evaluating which posts saw the highest engagement rate or resulted in the highest reach, profile views or following. Lastly, it helps us get creative and begin to brainstorm new tactics that will drive results. 

Let’s recap, shall we?

It’s no secret that social media is often a pain point for businesses. However, with a strategy in place and best practices in mind, it can be one of the most effective ways to grow your brand awareness, increase website traffic, and stay top of mind with your consumers. 

Key takeaways: 

• If you want your social media efforts to become an effective way to grow your business, developing a strategy is non-negotiable. 
• High-quality content helps you retain your followers and increases your overall reach. 
• Stop boosting content that you think people will resonate with and start boosting content that is resonating already.
• Schedule time to log on and interact with your audience on a daily basis.
• Focus on a diverse mix of content with a consistent look and feel.
• Be aware of the evolution of each social network you’re active on and study the way that your target audience is spending their time on it. 
• Analyze the results of your content and social media management tactics each month to establish wins, losses, and opportunities for the month ahead. 

Is social media marketing part of your marketing engine but not granting the results you want? Need help developing and implementing a thoughtfully researched and goal oriented social media strategy? Looking for a full-service agency to craft and execute a complete marketing plan that will make you thrive? We can help. Don’t be shy, connect with us!