Ben Givon’s Top 5 Not-So-Obvious Social Media Marketing Mistakes You Must Avoid
If you are reading this then you must be an at least somewhat savvy operator. So we know you aren’t making the obvious social media marketing mistakes such as, for instance, maintaining a private profile, or not switching to a business account.
But that doesn’t mean you aren’t committing any of the other, less obvious mistakes. What are those errors and why are they errors — Ben Givon shares his knowledge with you.
- Posting on empty
You may have the idea that if you have a social media profile you absolutely must “show the flag”, “maintain your presence” and above all else “post or perish” — even if you don’t really have much of anything to say just now. Wrong, wrong, wrong! To paraphrase your mother- if you don’t have something important, useful, engaging or at least funny to say — then just don’t say anything at all. You will simply be pushing away people who might otherwise be engaged with your brand and gain a lousy rep in the process. Furthermore, Instagram and other social media platforms follow your engagement rate — if users fail to engage with content, then Instagram will stop displaying it to them.
2. Inflexible social media strategies
Moderation in all things — in other words, don’t go overboard with any single social media strategy. If the strategy shows no sign of panning out then you need to adapt it — or even think out of the box and dump it entirely. There are two reasons to avoid “sticking to the agenda”. First, doing so eliminates in advance the possibility of benefiting from a fit of inspiration, a change in the marketplace, or any number of other possibilities over which you have little control or ability to anticipate. You may not be able to factor being struck by lightning into “The Plan”, but if you are, the plan needs to change. But the real reason to avoid this kind of bullheaded stubbornness is that at the end of the day, your audience is the only thing that matters. If you aren’t gaining their engagement then what the heck are you on social media for?
3. Overpromotion
There is a difference between product promotion and social media marketing. To speak in Neanderthal terms, The first is the equivalent of bashing the antelope on the skull with your club. The second is the art and skill of driving the herd of antelopes into the corral. Where you can bash them on the head.
Analogy understood? Good, moving on: no matter how excited you are about your product carping on about it isn’t sexy. First, you need to build the relationship, establish trust, engage your audience. Then, and only then, should you interject, in moderate amounts, product promotion.
4. Brand inconsistency
Authenticity is what customers, particularly millennials, prize above all else. They know you and every business is out for their money and are guarded against insincere advertising and inflated promises. The way to get past those guards is by establishing trust, and that means consistency in how you present your brand. Differentiation and uniqueness follow from consistently sending out the same message and theme. Deviating to fashionable but generic messages sends out the message that you are just the same of everyone else — so why should anyone buy your product?
5. Using Link tree in your Instagram bio
I’m not even going to go into why this is a huge mistake. Suffice it to say that read mistake #4 — if your aim is differentiating yourself from the crowd then the one and only link in your profile should not be to your unique website.
