In today’s social media realm, businesses are trying their
best to stay in front of their audience. This is a good thing! But if you’re struggling
to reach your goals, you may want to reevaluate your current digital marketing
strategy.
Digital marketing is critical for business success and too
many brands are making common errors when it comes to marketing themselves
online; therefore, leaving their brand stagnant. Here are just a few of the
common mistakes brands are making and how you can avoid them (or fix if you
find yourself making them right now!).
1. Using Poor Content
You should never want to go into social media marketing with
the mindset of quantity over quality. Yes, it’s good for a business to be
present on social media and post regularly but don’t just put out posts just to
put out posts and call it a day. That’s not going to bring attention to your
brand. Your content should be well-written, relevant, creative and something
you think your audience would be interested in seeing.
People are constantly on social media swiping and scrolling
through the feed, so you want your content to be eye-catching. You want to grasp
their attention. So how do you do it? We suggest taking some time to research
and get to know your audience online. Another tip would be to scope out your
competitors and see what’s working for them to get ideas.
2. Not Investing In A Good Website
Another mistake some businesses make is thinking their
website isn’t an important asset for their business. This is untrue. With most
of the population online nowadays, it’s important to invest in a good website. People
aren’t going to find your business or learn about the services or products you
offer if you don’t have a website in place.
⁃
Do you feel like your website
represents your business well?
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Does it tell your story and showcase
your values in a unique way that makes your brand stand out?
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Are you happy with the way your current
website looks?
If your answer is anything other than a “yes” to all three
of these questions you might want to think about investing in a better website
or upgrading it. A website is often the first impression you give your audience
about your business. Try and put yourself in your audience’s shoes. If you were
to come across your website searching for your product/service, would you be
intrigued? Or would you be bored and leave?
Just some questions to think about. If you’re interested in
hearing how you can revamp your current website for as low as $469 a month, schedule
a consultation with us here.
3. Over Promoting Yourself
When it comes to creating content for your brand online, you
want to hype up your brand, explain who you are and what you do – makes sense.
But you don’t want all your content to be centered on selling the service(s) or
product(s) you offer. Instead, position your content on how your service or
product is meeting a customers’ needs. You should showcase the benefits it will
provide the consumer. The key is to get the customer to see that they not only
want it, but they need it.
Social media users are also intrigued by how a business
represents itself online aside from just business. They like to see the personality
behind the brand. Other post ideas that do well on social would include:
–
Behind the scenes (business culture,
employees, holidays, etc)
And these are just to name a few…
4. Not Engaging With Your Audience Online
Another major mistake would be choosing to ignore comments
and DMs on your social platforms. This sends the wrong message. This could
potentially give your audience the impression that you don’t care what they have
to say.
A big advantage to engaging with people on your platform is that
it helps to build brand awareness and presents proof that people trust your
brand. It can also give you a little insight into your audience by learning how
they feel about your brand.
Next time you receive some engagement on social be sure to
engage back in a timely manner as well. Even if it’s just a simple comment
giving your business praise, still choose to respond. Regularly communicating with
your audience will help you work on building those relationships and make your
audience feel important and valued.
If it’s negative engagement on a post, kindly comment and suggest
moving the conversation away from the public eye to a private message.
5. Little To No Planning
Coming up with content on the spot can be difficult. As a
business owner, you’ve got a busy schedule and you probably don’t have time to
stop what you’re doing every day to figure out what you’re going to post.
Having a consistent schedule laid out ahead of time will help keep things
organized and save you time.
Planning your content ahead of time can help you carry across
a consistent tone and brand voice on social media. It also allows you the
time to research and create good content that will resonate better with your audience
by taking the time to look into key trends and figuring out what your audience responds to on
social. By looking at past content, you’ll be able to plan future content based
on what has done well in the past or shift gears if you notice that people are
not resonating with it.
6. Failing To Measure Analytics
This is probably the worst digital marketing mistake you can
make. When you set up a digital marketing strategy, you layout your goals and determine
how you plan to reach them. Well, how are you supposed to see if your marketing
efforts are paying off if you aren’t measuring the analytics? You can’t.
Analytics is very telling. By looking at certain measurements
like engagement rate, bounce rate, impressions, reaches, shares, etc… you’ll
see the areas your business has done well in and where there needs to be improvement.
Make it a plan to examine your analytics within a set time period and adjust
your marketing strategy where you see fit, so you can get your business closer
to reaching your goals.
In Conclusion…
Being on social media is crucial for small businesses but
only if you’re utilizing it in the right ways. These are just a few of the common
mistakes business owners make but they are simple fixes. Our best advice would
be that if you’re not happy with your current digital marketing efforts and don’t
have the time to fix them, consider working with us! We help small businesses
turn their social into sales by creating a marketing strategy that will work
toward their own goals. Feel free to schedule a consultation with us to hear
more on how we can help you with your digital marketing efforts, so you can
start turning your social into sales.
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