Five common mistakes bosses make about social media marketing

Social and digital marketing has the power to deliver fantastic results in terms of sales, leads, customer service and search engine visibility. And yet in the main it does not.

Why not? We could write a looooong list of common mistakes made by so-called social media experts and marketing peeps, but this one is aimed squarely at the people in charge – business owners, managing directors, CEOs… you know who you are.

1. You think it’s not relevant to your business or industry

We hear it all the time – “our customers probably aren’t on social media”. And it’s nonsense. There are 45 million active social media users in the UK.  That’s over two thirds of the population. You might be interested to hear 74% of high-income earners use Facebook too.

Your customers, prospects and suspects are on social media. And that makes it very relevant indeed.

2. You think it’s “junior role”

Just because you think young people “look at their phones all day” does not make the office junior the right person to look after your social media. Far from it. Big mistake.

Effective marketing of any form takes skill, knowledge and experience. Social media marketing is no different; if anything, it is more complex and challenging than “conventional” marketing. Do not underestimate it – talk to the experts and ask to see their track record.

3. You don’t recognise it for what it is…

Don’t be confused by fluffy terminology beloved by social darlings about “engaging” and “building relationships” with your social media audience. Recognise social media for what it is – a kick-arse advertising environment. How else do you think they make so much money?

Social media is so much better than traditional advertising. It is the most laser targeted, supercharged and cost-effective advertising environment available. But it takes skill to make it work.

Ask the people running your social media pages if they are “boosting your posts”. If the answer is “no” then get someone else to do it. Not boosting posts is a cardinal sin – on average non-boosted Facebook posts reach just 5.5% of page followers. Social platforms are not here to let you promote your business for free, you need to pay to do it.

4. You don’t take an interest

I always say marketing spend should support revenue; otherwise it is nothing more than a cost. Costs are bad – they reduce profit. Time and money spent on social media activity needs to justify itself.

Ask these three questions of your social peeps, and If the answers are vaguely woolly, it’s time for a rethink:

5. You have no strategy

It‘s crazy for a business to engage in public facing activity without having a clear objective and strategy. And yet many do. Allowing the office junior to post random twaddle in isolation of your business development strategy will achieve nothing other than making your brand look a bit stupid.

Before doing anything on social media you need to clear:

• What do you want it to achieve?
• How will it support your sales process?
• What do you actually want to happen?

By way of example…

We wrote this blog to help promote our digital marketing services. Odds you’re reading it because you found it through our social media activity. And if you’re a business owner or manager, then you know our targeted promotional methods work.

And what do we want to happen? We want you to give us a call and ask us about what social media can achieve for your business. Go on, we’re lovely.