April 4, 2011

Common mistakes marketers do when using social media


Photo cred: rutlo

More and more businesses are using it to get more visibility for their brands or products. But as easy to use as they seem to be, as likely you are to make mistakes that can cost you big money. What differentiates a small business from a big business? Or, better yet, what are the common mistakes your company doesn't want to do when using social media as a marketing tool?

Here are some useful tips for you to take into consideration:

1. Master the basics

There are a lot of companies that are in their infancy using social media channels to promote their business. Just because you have a personal Facebook account with 1.000+ friends or there are 200+ followers on your Twitter account doesn't make you a social media guru. Set up a your companies goals, create a clear marketing strategy and establish the role of social media in it. These are the bricks that stay at the foundation of every successful marketing campaign.

Keep yourself informed, observe what's happening around you and learn from other marketing campaigns that went wrong.

2. Don't just talk, put it into practice !

A lot of marketers talk about how you should use social media to promote your business, what you need to do, where and when to do it. How many of them put it into practice? Change the "I should do" with the "I must do".


3. Don't experiment on your company's money

Now I'm sure that you're wondering what's this all about. Well, I'm not referring to testing out which channel would be the best to use. Be committed to what you're doing even when it seems boring. The longer it takes for you to learn how to proper use the social media tools in your company's interest, the bigger the costs. Take your job seriously every time you interact with your audience and remember TIME equals MONEY.

4. Create, Share, Interact

Being able to automatically post on different channels at the same time doesn't mean that you get to your audience. It's pretty much like offering a pair of 3D glasses to a blind man. Just because it's there, doesn't mean it's useful. People will not press the like button on Facebook just because you have it, they won't follow you on Twitter just because you have a growing list of followers or add you to their professional network on LinkedIn just because you are the Social Media Manager for the X company.

You need to create value for them.

Ask yourself a question before going socially crazy: Why would I become a fan of whatever I'm reading ? That's right, because it brings you a plus of knowledge in one way or another. Would you have read this article until the end if you didn't find something valuable to learn from it ?

Having a great content might be the first step, but it's definitely not the only one. You'll also need to interact with you audience, engage with them as you do with people you meet every day in your real life. Give feedback, answer to questions, create THE BUZZ you're looking to have around your brands.

There isn't a good or a bad answer for what should you do in your social media campaign. There are only tips of what works and what doesn't work. There are still many things to cover on this subject and I promise to get back to it in a future post.

What's the worst/biggest mistake you saw in a social media campaign ?

author

About The Author:

My name is Cristian Anechitei but you’ll inevitably just call me Chris.

I work as a Senior Marketing Specialist for a B2B marketing consultancy company called NNC Services where I get to do what I like the most: help businesses grow, meet new people that are working on some interesting new projects and learn lots of stuff every day. I enjoy playing video games, watching good movies and creating new business ideas. I like to think of myself as being a problem solver, solution finder and overall positive attitude individual.

If you have an idea that you'd like to share or just want to say 'hello', feel free to connect with me via LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.

Chris

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