In my almost 17 years of working with businesses large and small on marketing campaigns, trainings and day-to-day management, there is one thing I know for sure: every single business – even ones in the same niche – requires its own unique strategy. There can be subtle nuances in audience demographics, goals and other factors that contribute to what goes into it, but in order to ensure your marketing efforts (and all the time spent working on them) are not wasted, having a tailored and effective marketing strategy prior to posting on social media is a must.
I have seen a pattern in common mistakes that businesses who DIY their marketing tend to make, and here are the ones I see most often:
5 common mistakes that small and medium businesses make with their marketing, and how to avoid:
1. No strategy
A marketing plan without a strategy is guesswork. Avoid leaving your main form of connection to your audience up in the air
How to avoid this: ensure you have created a strategy in advance!
2. Not taking time to learn and understand the platforms the business will be marketing on
Not being aware of how a social media platform works for business pages specifically could cause your posts to lose reach or worse yet, violate policies.
How to avoid this: Do some research on each platform you plan to use so you can understand the algorithms, rules, terms, image size requirements and best practices.
3.Trying to be everywhere at once
Effective social marketing for business is time consuming work – you will already need to set time aside each week for content creation… can you make time for doing it on multiple channels? Sharing the exact same content across all channels every day might seem like the easiest solution, but the tone and type of content that resonates on one channel may not be effective on another – ideally, you tailor your content to the specific channels you publish to.
How to avoid this: Don’t bite off more than you can chew, especially in the beginning. Start slow with as many platforms as you can realistically handle (even just 1-2 to start), and add on if you have time.
4. Time saving hacks are great, copy-pasting the same exact posts to all of your channels every day… not so much.
I mentioned a bit about this in #3 above. Another reason: if there is overlap in the audiences, people might scroll past your post if they already saw it somewhere else.
How to avoid this: Try to share a variety of content to your different channels each day
5. Looking for advice in all the wrong places…
I wrote a full blog on this topic alone – I could talk about this one for days! In summary, I see a lot of business owners asking random people in Facebook groups for help with things like which platforms to use etc. It seems like a quick and easy way to find out, but there is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all strategy – what works for your colleague (even someone in the same industry) might not work for you too, if there are variations in your audiences, goals, etc.
How to avoid this: The answers to questions like this will be different for every business, so the advice you get asking a random person isn’t likely to be helpful. Determine and learn about your own specific target audience so you can produce content that speaks directly to them and attracts them like a magnet to your content.
In conclusion: Social media for business is a whole different world in comparison to social media for your personal posts. Effective business marketing requires an effective strategy, and that strategy may require ongoing auditing as your business and goals continue to change and evolve. If it gets overwhelming trying to figure it out, contact me here for a complimentary, no-pressure call to discuss your challenges and see if our strategy session, online trainings or social media management options are a fit for you.