Small business owners and social media managers! Let’s dive into a topic that hits close to home today: social media management. It’s tricky, right? You’ve got a business to run, customers to please, and a social media presence to maintain amid all that. But are you unknowingly stumbling into common pitfalls? Let’s find out.
Lack of Clear Strategy:
It is crucial to have a well-defined social media strategy that aligns with your business goals. Failing to do so can lead to sending out the wrong messages or targeting the wrong audience. It can also result in a lack of focus, as different teams may work on different campaigns without a unified direction. Ultimately, this could lead to no results and waste of resources.
With a defined strategy, it is easier to determine which tactics should be implemented and which are the most effective. Furthermore, with a clear goal, measuring campaign success is easier. These measures are necessary for evaluating and adjusting strategy as needed Without these measures, evaluating and adjusting strategy as needed is difficult.
Ignoring Platform Specifics:
Treating all social media platforms the same instead of tailoring content to each platform’s audience and features. This can lead to ineffective content and messaging, as different platforms have different strengths and weaknesses. It can also lead to better communication between platforms. Therefore, it is important to know the platform-specific features when creating content.
Neglecting Audience Engagement:
It is important to interact with your followers through comments, messages, and posts. Not doing so can create a sense of disconnect between your company and its customers. As a brand owner, it is crucial to ensure that you promptly reply to customer inquiries, comments, and messages. Additionally, you should create and share content that is relevant to your target audience and engage with them.
You should also post regularly and consistently. This will help to keep your brand at the forefront of your customers’ minds and build trust. Additionally, you should track the performance of your social accounts and use it to inform future strategies.
Inconsistent Posting:
One of the reasons brands struggle with consistency when it comes to posting on social media is simply a lack of time.
It can be challenging to find the time to create content, post on multiple platforms, and engage with your audience. This inconsistency is not due to a lack of motivation, but rather a lack of time and resources. Luckily, there are tools available, like CLIQSA, that can help you manage multiple social platforms and automate much of the process. With CLIQSA, you can streamline your social media management and ensure that your posts are consistent and engaging.
Overemphasis on Promotion:
Are you constantly promoting your products or services instead of providing value or sharing engaging content? If you answered yes, return to the drawing board and restart with a blank slate.
Use the 80/20 rule. 80% of your content should be informative, entertaining, or inspiring while only 20% should be promotional. Provide value first, then promote your products or services second.
Underestimating Visuals:
Creatives are crucial to your social media success. The images and videos you use shouldn’t be boring, low quality or not in line with your branding. Canva is a great place to design great creatives even if you’re not a good designer. They provide you with templates, photos, videos, and millions of other elements to use in your creatives. You get a lot even with the free version.
There are also websites where you can download free images and videos like pixabay, pexels, Unsplash, etc.
There are tons of canva alternatives on the web and mobile app stores. One that I have used lately is Designer from Microsoft. Although, my current favorite remains Canva.
Ignoring Social Media Analytics:
How do you know if anything is working? By the number of followers, likes, and comments? These are great, but for the most part, most companies are considered vanity metrics.
Every social media you use has an analytics dashboard; learn to navigate and understand each and every metric. Furthermore, define in your strategy what are your goals and objectives to stay on course and focus on what matters.
Poor Response to Negative Reviews:
It’s completely understandable to fear negative reviews and comments, but more important is learning how to handle them. Here’s why:
Firstly, some negative feedback can provide valuable insights on how to improve your product, service, communication, or delivery. Take a step back and objectively look at what they’re saying. If they have a point, acknowledge it, thank them, and promise to take action. If possible, even reward them for their constructive criticism.
There are also people on the internet who just like to lash out at anyone and everyone. When it comes to your brand, handle it with class. If their comments are true, apologize and fix the issue. If they’re not true, respectfully state your side of the story. This will give potential customers a clearer understanding of how your company operates.
It’s important to remember that customers aren’t always right. When they’re not, it’s okay to respectfully set boundaries and protect the sanity and image of your brand.
Lastly, as a business, you serve three types of clients: your buyers, your partners and suppliers, and your employees. While most companies prioritize their buyers, it’s crucial to consider the well-being of your employees as well. Letting your buyers always have their way with your employees will only lead to resentment and a negative work environment. And that will ultimately result in a poorer experience for future clients. Happy employees make better employees.
Not Utilizing Paid Advertising:
I’ve always thought of organic and paid exposure as being similar to farming and buying your fruits and vegetables. In business, I recommend doing both. Cultivating organic traffic can have great benefits in terms of traffic and authority. Paid advertisement allows you to reach a larger audience quickly. In our fast-paced economy, spending even a small budget on platforms where you’ll find most of your audience is important. Build a strong foundation and then expand to other platforms.
It may take longer to see results if you try to build your social media presence without advertising for too long. However, that’s not to say that there haven’t been brands that grew overnight by luck. Increase your chances of success by allocating even a small budget for your social media advertising campaigns.
Lack of Brand Consistency:
A consistent voice or branding across different platforms can be a major business issue. It can make it difficult for customers to recognize your brand and message, leading to confusion and misunderstandings. This can ultimately result in lower sales and brand misinterpretations. Therefore, businesses must maintain a consistent voice and branding across all platforms to convey a clear message to customers.
By maintaining a consistent voice and branding across all platforms, businesses can create a strong presence and effectively communicate their message to customers.
Conclusion:
Social media is part of our lives, personal and business. As a business owner, you need to put your brand in front of your audience, which means having effective social media management in today’s economy.
It can seem overwhelming; therefore, we recommend having a strategy, a content calendar, and finding tools to help make managing your social media more manageable and your life easier.
