Top 5 things to avoid while planning the Social Media Campaign

Everyone wants to get noticed and where the buzz is there currently. The best branding option today is social media and with the number people using the internet is increasing day by day. You have a great content and aesthetically designed website. But not getting the required amount of traffic? Wondering what is going wrong. Nothing is going wrong except one thing which you have not yet started.

Social media can be a very good source for getting business, but there are few things to avoid:

1. Treating Social Media as a casual affair:

Don’t treat social media strategy and campaigns as a casual affair. It needs to be treated seriously and with due importance in today’s digital world. It is a wonderful platform to share new opportunities, projects and grow your business and that means you need a dedicated person to handle your social media strategy. He/ She would be the one responsible for handling content, generating regular blogs, posting on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and other channels at regular intervals, getting the right graphics created, adding the new contacts and so on. The list is literally endless. So, never make a mistake of allocating this task to some developer or designer who is managing his own tasks and dedicating very little time for social media activities. In the connected world, people would appreciate if they get an immediate response. The quicker the response, more are the chances of converting the lead into a paying customer. A delayed response is the main effect of not having a dedicated resource on this and may result in the potential customer going to your competition.

2. Working on only one or two social media platforms:

Make your presence visible on many platforms. There are many social media platforms in the market and every day new social media sites are coming in the market. But make sure that you have your business profile/company profile on major platforms like LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and Instagram. Interlinking these within the posts generates cross-references and traffic on each of these. It is, however, the task of the social media manager handling these tasks to determine how much is enough. Too many promotional posts are also not a good idea.

3. Ignoring the negative comments

Ignoring the negative comments or not taking action on them is a very common mistake which people do on social media. Interaction is important. Don’t ignore the negative comments, in fact, take these with seriousness and acknowledge the negative comments with an apology for the inconvenience caused. Then, look into the matter and try to resolve it at the earliest. Once you have a solution, do use the same social media channel to inform the troubled customer that their complaint has been taken seriously and has been handled. Also, give them an assurance that your organization learns from its mistakes and it will not be repeated again. Social media interaction on this goes a long way in making your brand well known and respected over a period of time.

4. Not being consistent in posting to the social media

For social media, consistency is a hygiene factor. It takes time to build an online social network as well. But being consistent and persistent in providing regular posts is the key to social media success. Four to five posts per week on social media channels like Twitter and LinkedIn makes a healthy dose. And keep doing it for a considerable time. Now, you will begin to appreciate that the social media manager is a full-time, maybe an overtime job as the social media is active 24/7 the interactions will start to happen round the clock.

5. Promoting your brand too much

Yes, we all are here to promote our business, but promoting too much on social media is not good. The posts that we share on social media must be useful. They should provide value to the readers and target audience. A good percentage split is 80-20. 80% of the posts should be informative and should give the readers some useful tips, templates or insights. 20% of the posts can be a pure promotion of your company products or brand. This is how you will build a brand and confidence in your reader’s minds. Over a period of consistently doing this, they will, in fact, look forward to your posts with eagerness.

Here is a bonus tip…

Don’t write an impulsive post. Think and then write.

Don’t share too much personal information as it can cause more harm than help. If you have not taken care of your privacy settings, then it could result in data theft and may end up in damaging your brand value. Make sure to share just the right kind of information, be it the business or personal social media accounts and reap the benefits of this unique way to reach literally millions of potential customers through your social media strategy.

Social media is here for a while and it is going to stay for a long time. There has been a lot of discussion on this topic.