It’s a reality today that business organizations of all sizes recognize the benefits of establishing a social media presence. By being online, they are able to reach out to their target market across the globe and even engage with them on a regular basis. This being the case, it’s no surprise that certain companies are investing heavily on certain social networking platforms for marketing purposes.
But with the many social media sites in existence nowadays, it can be a real challenge and not to mention, time consuming, to be on various platforms all at the same time. Some organizations are also not using their online presence wisely resulting in failure in meeting business goals.
Here then are the common mistakes you need to avoid to ensure that your business goals are met and sustained through time.
Being Present Everywhere
While your organization may think that it should be in all social networking sites available today, don’t be tempted to do that. Creating accounts in all platforms is not the answer notably if you don’t have the right staff to manage your sites. Keep in mind that maintaining sites can be time-consuming hence, it’s best to choose only two to three platforms used by a great number of your target market and which you can regularly update.
LinkedIn is best for companies targeting a professional audience while Facebook is ideal for those in the direct selling business. Pinterest is also a good site for businesses that sell physical products.
Not Engaging with Consumers
Social networking is all about communication and interaction hence, users including business organizations need to engage with people in order to meet their goals. The problem with some groups is that they simply post updates and fail to interact with their audience.
The right way is to start a conversation with your target market or reply to any feedback received notably the negative ones. This way, your clients and followers will feel that they are being valued and when they develop a positive feeling towards your organization, there’s a great chance that they will continue to trust and follow you.
A lot of businesses also start these accounts, and then go dormant for a while. Even if you’re just retweeting other businesses 10 times per day, it’s important that your account is active, and engaging, said social media expert Aidan Cassidy.
Not Following Proper English Usage
As a business entity, you are required to be professional in the way you communicate and interact with your target audience. This means you are expected to be proficient in the English language even in platforms such as Twitter that limit the number of characters used in every tweet.
You just have to double check your grammar. Even though a tweet is only 140 characters long, there’s still the chance of a grammar error or two to float out there for the whole world to see. The last thing you want is to look like a dolt on social media, according to social media expert Aidan Cassidy.
Buying Followers
Wanting to have so many followers all at once is the goal of certain organizations but this cannot be done overnight. It’s true that there may be apps that can help you do this but then again, getting thousands of followers in only a short time after you’ve established your social media presence can appear anomalous.
Buying too many followers is always a mistake. If you’re a small local business, buying over 100k followers will look fishy. Think about how large your audience should be relative to the amount of business you’re doing, and go with that. For most small businesses, getting their follower list up to 10-20k is sufficient, Aidan Cassidy pointed out.
Lack of Security Measures
It’s a must to check your security settings on every social networking site that you use. As hackers are becoming more high tech these days, it’s easy for them to enter other people’s accounts.
In addition to the security settings, however, companies need to set a clear policy for their employees who manage their social media accounts. Sharing of passwords or usernames should not be allowed as well as opening of attachments or clicking links in unsolicited messages. A boundary should be set as to what types of information can be shared on social platforms.
Originally posted on December 19, 2014 @ 9:56 pm
