Five Social Media Marketing Mistakes Costing You Revenue + Audience
It’s easy for many business owners to feel like social media is intuitive or native, especially as the platforms age and our day-to-day use of them—for both personal and business reasons—grows. Unless you know the ins-and-outs of how algorithms shift, those gut instincts may not always be your guiding light. Since algorithms shape the overall user experience, it’s important to evaluate how your strategy is impacting your bottom line.
In social media marketing, there are no hard and fast rules. What worked in 2021 might not work in the years to follow due to a shift of algorithm. Consider these 5 social media marketing mistakes that could be costing you revenue and audience.
Leaving your comments unanswered
As the algorithm on our favorite social platforms become more and more complex, impressions and engagement are key metrics to keep your eye on. Keep in mind that on average, a business account will get about 0.83% engagement. That’s a relatively low number. Anytime you have engagement, you want to engage it and keep it going. When it comes to increasing engagement and impressions, leaving your comments unanswered is like leaving money on the table. In fact, 71% of consumers will recommend a brand after having a positive experience on social media. Now that’s really leaving money on the table. Use your comments as a space to build community and a place to offer a great customer experience that the world can literally see.
If you feel overwhelmed by incoming comments, tools like Agorapulse can help you put all of your social media content together into one feed, allowing you to easily distribute commenting throughout your team, depending on how large your following is.
Relying on autoresponders/automation
What’s worse than leaving your comments unanswered? Having a generic autoresponder. There’s nothing less social than speaking to a robot. But don’t take it from us. Consider the following two autoresponder blunders:
Do not blanketly respond to all your comments the same: In 2013, American Airlines created an autoresponder for every tweet: “Thanks for your support! We look forward to a bright future as the #newAmerican.” On the surface, that seems like a great idea, especially considering the importance of engagement and making your customers feel seen. Unfortunately, social media is known to bring out the best and sometimes the worst in people. During their experiment with autoresponders, someone tweeted to the airline, calling them, “the sh–iest airline in the world.” To which AA responded, “Thanks for your support! We look forward to a bright future as the #newAmerican.” Thanking someone for that kind of support is definitely noteworthy, and not the good kind.
Limit your total number of autoresponders: This one can be easily eliminated by working with a high-level social media strategy. Regardless, in 2012, Toyota set an autoresponder for anyone using #camryeffect. At the same time, they used this hashtag as part of a Super Bowl ad. Toyota asked people to tweet #camryeffect for a chance to win a new Camry. While the use of the hashtag was a success, the autoresponders sent out so many tweets that Twitter filed the hashtag as spam and forced many of Toyota’s accounts to be suspended. There’s a fine line between autoresponders and spam.
There are many instances in which autoresponders or chatbots are successful. However, in a world where you have to push 1 or 2 and rarely get to speak to a human when you want to speak to a representative at a company, autoresponders on social media are likely a place you are hurting your ability to build a community and decreasing your ability to convert users into loyal customers. Putting yourself or your employees on social media and answering with real responses is something that will set you apart from your competitors. In a world full of bots, be a human.
Ghosting your audience
Let’s flashback to 2016 for just a quick second. Brands and social media users alike were stunned when Kim Kardashian went on a social media hiatus. Why is this relevant to your business? Well, it’s estimated that she was poised to lose up to $1M during this social media blackout, just by not posting! We’re not suggesting that your brand will lose that much revenue, but it’s important to know when you ghost your audience and stop posting altogether, your brand stops being top of mind and you lose web traffic. With that comes losses in total revenue. Consider that of Facebook’s 2.5 billion active users, 74% log into the social network daily, and 1.4 billion people are engaged in Facebook groups on a monthly basis. Those are a lot of potential customers you could be missing out on.
If those numbers, alone, weren’t enough, do the math for yourself to see what you could be losing by not posting:
Inside of your analytics suite, take a look at how much of your monthly profit comes from social media (percentage-wise). Remove that percentage from your gross.
In addition to your losses, some people may think your brand is out of business altogether. Take it from KKW and us: Make social media posting a consistent part of your marketing plan.
Jumping on trending hashtags + trends
Every year, business owners and consumers alike are introduced to new social media trends and trending hashtags. If you’ve ever thought to yourself, “Hey, why didn’t we participate in x, y, and z trend?”, the better question to ask yourself is, “Does x, y, and z trend reach MY target demographic?” If the answer is no, then jumping on a trend could actually isolate your target demographic from your brand message. The same can be said for national events and themes. Many brands spend time trying to insert themselves into the next viral meme, but the time to put together a campaign (however little or small) costs you money. If the trend doesn’t meet your brand’s business goals, it’s time to spend that money and energy elsewhere.
Don’t worry, because the people are speaking! When it comes to social media trends, your users are already telling you what they like, love, and hate. Engage in a social listening campaign to parse through all the social media noise and hone in on the trends that can take your business from zero to hero with one meme or viral video.
Not having a social media marketing plan
If all of the tips we’ve offered seem to have an overall theme, you’re not wrong. At the heart of what could be losing you revenue and audience: a lack of planning ties all of these together. You can avoid many, if not all, of these social media blunders by putting together a social media marketing plan with set measurable metrics and strategies.
If you’re looking for an expert to level up your game, click here to learn more about how our team can help you.
Social media marketing plans will allow you to:
Identify your audience
Create strategic and relevant posts that foster a community
Turn social media users into loyal customers
Remember, there is no “one size fits all,” when it comes to marketing, and there is nothing worse than stale, generic marketing, especially when it comes to social media. It’s something that lumps you in with everyone else, during a time when our digital lives are already overly saturated. But in the year 2022, we’re putting thoughtful and strategic social engagement at the top of our list as a simple way to build your audience and your revenue.