The 4 Cardinal Sins of Social Media Marketing
Social media is more than a tool to reach friends and acquaintances. It’s increasingly used as a marketing tool by savvy marketers everywhere. It can be a very powerful tool in the right hands. However, too many marketers go in without doing their homework. In this article, we’re going to expose the four cardinal sins every social media marketer should steer away from if they want to enjoy any success:
Thou Shalt Not Neglect Your Audience
Have you ever come across a company’s Facebook page or Twitter account only to find out they haven’t published anything since 2010? This is one of the biggest mistakes anyone can do with social media marketing. It automatically devalues the brand and shows that they don’t really care. Make sure that you stay consistent and be regular with your tweets and posts. But don’t overdo it. Use a tool like Fanpage Karma to see when, where, and how often your competition is reaching out to their audience and emulate their efforts. You could also work with an online marketing agency such as Single Grain. They will help you set up a social media marketing strategy tailored to your needs.
Thou Shalt Not Use Social Media As A Billboard
Too many people make the mistake of not engaging their audience on social media. Instead, they use their pages as a mere tool to advertise their services. While your social media can be used to advertise from time to time, you should focus on engaging with your audience first and foremost. Social media should be a place where you share ideas and have meaningful conversations. People often don’t realize the impact actually helping someone can have on your brand. It shows that you do care about your customers, which goes a long way toward establishing trust with your audience.
Thou Shalt Not Ignore Reviews
In this day and age, reviews are powerful and can make or break any business. However, the best way to tackle bad reviews is to address dissatisfied customers. If someone has something bad to say about your products or services, don’t ignore them. It will only make matters worse. Many businesses are viewed as faceless, but engaging with your visitors, whether they have bad intentions or not, is a great way to dispel that image. Remember, everyone that visits your page will see your interactions, which might help shed a positive light on your business.
Thou Shalt Not Oversell
Blatant advertisements are one of the easiest ways to turn off your social media audience. Many people do turn to social media to have genuine interactions and not be sold on some product and service. Try to focus on the social aspect of social media instead of being overly promotional. Provide interesting and entertaining content that could eventually go viral.
Stay away from these four cardinal sins and you should be golden. Remember not to oversell your audience and focus on providing interesting content. Be consistent with your efforts and don’t ignore your audience. And last, but not least, don’t be afraid to interact with your competitors as well. Who knows, maybe you’ll end up converting a few people into believers in the process.
