With the social media landscape continuously evolving,  it’s fundamental for businesses to understand not only the best social media marketing practices but also the actions to avoid so that you can prevent tarnishing your brand image and losing followers.

This blog post will give you insight into social media mistakes to avoid and how to avoid them in 2022 so that you can create an authentic brand reputation to entice new customers and build brand loyalty.

Not Having a Clear Strategy

A clear social media strategy sets the foundation for how successful your brand reputation will be online.

One of the first steps to creating a concise social media strategy is to figure out your target audience. You can do this by creating personas which involve configuring data with regard to your target audience. An audience persona could include age, gender, location and general interests – by creating personas, you will be able to create organic engagement as you tailor your communications around content that resonates with your target audience.

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make in their social media marketing is placing quantity over quality, which results in a loss of time and money, as well as damaging the brand image because their message doesn’t reach the target audience. 

One way to avoid this mistake is by investing in research before you create any content, so you know what your target audience wants and needs from you. You can start by researching what your competitors are doing, so you can set yourself apart from them and create meaningful content that appeals to your audience on an emotional level.

By Firmbee.com

Neglecting to Look at Feedback about the Company

Monitoring your social media campaign for conversations about the company is essential for any business to stay up-to-date on what their customers are saying. This is important because it can tell you if there are any complaints that need to be addressed, and will demonstrate to customers that you’re willing to put effort into keeping customers satisfied, which will build retention and loyalty.

Social media marketing research has shown that responding to customers will have a positive impact on a brand’s credibility, with 71% of customers who have had a good social media service experience with a brand stating that they would likely recommend it to others.

In the infancy stages of social media, if your business received negative feedback, the common practice was to ignore it. However, in the present day, customers are looking for transparency.

The best way to deal with negative feedback is to acknowledge it and take action on it as soon as possible. This will enable you to show your customers that you value their opinion and want to provide them with the best service possible.

Some of the most common tools used for monitoring social media include Hootsuite, Sprout Social, and Buffer. These tools allow you to monitor all of your social media platforms in one place.

Yay!Recommendation for Social Media Success

An advanced social tool that we at Yay!Starter Marketing has used for our fintech client, PayAlly is Talkwalker which has enabled us to monitor all the social media activity of PayAlly, allowing us to gain an understanding of conversations customers are having with regards to the company, so that we can tailor our marketing strategy to meet the needs of existing and potential customers.

If you would like to grow your digital presence to convert customers, feel free to get in touch with the team at Yay!Starter.

By John Schnobrich

Not Tracking your Social Media Analytics 

With a plethora of social media analytics at your disposal, leveraging analytics is crucial to the prosperity of your business as you’ll be able to keep new and existing customers engaged with your content, which can drive traffic to your product or service. 

With 72% of businesses stating that social media data is used to inform business decisions, the use of analytics is becoming an invaluable tool to track results and progress, so that adjustments can be made accordingly.

All the largest social media platforms such as LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and TikTok offer customer analytics for free.

However, if you want a more comprehensive list of analytics, SEMrush, Sprout Social and Sprinklr offer detailed customer data, so that you can save time by avoiding replicating mistakes, and refining your strategy to get the best results possible for your customer needs that lead to conversions.

By path digital

Not Creating a Unique Brand Identity

The social media landscape is crowded, and it’s easy to get lost in the shuffle. To stand out on social media, you need to create a unique identity and branding. 

You can start by creating your brand identity by developing a tone of voice for communications on social media.

A business’ social media tone of voice should be a reflection of its brand, so creating a friendly, professional and natural tone of voice is important to building trust and integrity in your brand.

Despite social media being visually driven, your business shouldn’t solely rely on images to create a brand identity. What you post, how often you post, and how you interact with your followers can influence your brand identity.

People are drawn to brands that are authentic, transparent, and human. So if you want your company to reach its full potential on social media, you need to develop a brand identity that’s memorable and engaging to find success on social media.

By Jess Bailey

Ignoring Non-Traditional Platforms 

The meteoric rise of TikTok is just one example of a social media platform amassing popularity in a short space of time. With many social channels now available to reach out and engage with customers, many businesses ignore new social media platforms as they struggle to balance the existing platforms they’re on.

One of the biggest social media mistakes a business can make is to not embrace new and emerging social media platforms as this limits their reach online.

Social Media Channels to Watch out for: Clubhouse

For example, when the audio chatroom, Clubhouse emerged, it accelerated in popularity by nabbing the ‘5th most popular social media app’ spot on the App Store in early 2021. Despite the popularity of Clubhouse, many businesses haven’t fully leveraged the demand for Clubhouse. However, the brands that have used Clubhouse to reach new customers have seen their engagement grow from new audiences. For example, British retailer, Ted Baker has amassed thousands of followers by implementing their ‘Conversations in Culture’ on Clubhouse within their social media marketing.

The benefit of utilising the latest social media platforms is that you’re able to extend your brand awareness to people who might not visit your website, or be a traditional customer.

Developing a social media presence on the latest platforms will enable your business to create authentic and meaningful connections and build brand advocacy, leading to an increase in engagement.

By Jeremy Bezanger

By avoiding these common social media mistakes, your business will be able to gain and maintain a genuine following, drive brand loyalty and increase brand awareness, as well as stay on top of your competitors. 

If you’re looking to take the next step in your social media marketing efforts, feel free to get in touch with the team at Yay!Starter Marketing.