Social media is invariably touted as one of the best tools in a digital marketer’s arsenal. Much is said of the huge global audience, their engagement levels and the ease of its use.
All of this could suggest that social media marketing is easy, with marketers almost needing to just ‘turn up’ in order to achieve success. In reality, however, social media is a noisy, busy platform that requires a great deal of care and attention – a fact which many have discovered to their dismay.
As such, any marketing campaign which subscribes to one of these social sins, may be destined for failure.
Not enough
It is understandable why some companies don’t post updates as regularly as their should. In going from having no social accounts to a whole array can mean people run out of things to say rather quickly. By not keeping accounts updated, however, marketers may as well not have a social campaign at all.
Brands that are really struggling with things to say needn’t keep quiet, however. Instead, look at news or breaking developments within the industry and strike up conversations with subscribers. The attention can then focus on replying to comments and creating a more engaged audience until the next big talking point comes along.
Too much
Conversely, some marketers end up taking it too far the other way and end up alienating their audience – often to the point of unsubscribing. Whilst it’s positive there’s so much to say on social channels, maybe saying all of it isn’t wise. Instead, brands at this end of the spectrum may be wise to pick and choose their topics more effectively.
Flooding people’s timelines with updates is often viewed as overkill and pushes even the most avid of followers toward the ‘unsubscribe’ button.
Getting the right balance will only come with trial and error, but once this has been established, businesses should be certain they engage and audience without bombarding them.
On-message
Social media marketing is just that – marketing – but that needn’t mean that every single update has to be on message. Those who only provide updates on new products or services as they come on the market will surely miss the ‘social’ aspect of this media.
Some of the most well-loved commercial Twitter accounts belong to the likes of Innocent and Cravendale. These mix on-brand messages and promotion with fun, non-promotional others. As such, when the messages come through that are more ‘marketing’ in the traditional sense, people do not mind as they’ve built up an affinity with the brand.
As a positive side effect, this also helps create a much more three-dimensional brand voice, which can be used in marketing collateral forever more to distinguish one company from its competitors.
These are just three of what could be a potentially infinite number of social sins. So for campaigns that aren’t working, it may be worth looking at these before wondering why else the audience isn’t as engaged as prior reports may have suggested.
