3 Shocking Mistakes Killing Your Brand’s Social Media Strategy
For most brands, digital marketing can be quite a tricky task. With social media platforms changing what feels like every few weeks, marketers must be able to adapt to current trends and react to their audience’s interests. However, more times than not, brands often make critical mistakes that hinder their social media strategy.
On our podcast, Just a Taste, we spoke with Wendi Liechty from KWSM: A Digital Marketing Agency about common issues brands run into when marketing online. Here are 3 critical mistakes that often kill your brand’s social media strategy:
Content matters.
One of the most basic things to consider when running your company’s social media sites is considering what type of content to post. Although this may sound rather simple, posting a photo and caption that just fits into your brand’s marketing aesthetic won’t cut it anymore. Social media is flooded with that same sort of generic content. Your audience will overlook your post.
Liechy describes this shift in content as the need for brands to switch between pushing to pulling your audience in. Today, consumers are much more aware of when companies are attempting to sell to them. They no longer want to be sold to, but rather want to feel engaged and involved with brand’s social media sites. So posts need to not only be eye-catching, but also prompt a response from your audience.
One of the easiest ways to do this is to simply ask them questions. For example: when a holiday weekend is approaching make a post about what you plan on doing for the long weekend, and then ask what your followers are doing as well. This not only makes your brand feel more authentic, but it also starts a dialogue between you and your followers (which in turn grows your organic social media reach).
Pay attention to your audience (and competitors).
Creating engaging content is obviously very important, but you must also consider who you are trying to engage with. Even if your posts are aligned with your company’s values and image, if your audience isn’t interested in that, your posts are falling upon deaf ears.
It should be a routine for your social media manager to look at the audience insights/stats on each of your social media platforms to see who exactly your posts are reaching. It may surprise you that your actual audience isn’t necessarily who you had considered when making your content. But this also needs to be taken one step further. You also want to investigate who/what your audience is following and engaging with as well. This can be done by going through your follower lists and seeing what other accounts they follow and what hashtags they are using. By doing this you’ll get a thorough understanding of what your audience is interested in and will be able to adapt your own content to appeal to them.
A similar routine should also be done for your competitors. Look into what other companies in the same industry are currently doing and keep track of what seems to be working for them. Which of their posts have the most likes? Who are they following? How often do they reply to comments? All of these questions can give you vital insights into your own target audience and help generate ideas to make your own social media strategy more successful.
Make a plan. Stick to it.
On top of everything, the most important thing a brand can do to have success online is to create a thorough strategy and follow through with it. Create a calendar and schedule out what posts you want to make. This not only helps you organize your ideas, but it also allows you to plan ahead and get a jump start on content creation. By waiting to the last minute, the quality and creativity of your posts will suffer. But if you plan ahead, you can think more carefully about whether or not your content appeals to your audience.
This doesn’t necessarily mean you have to have a strict schedule. Your plan should be tentative. You should still be monitoring your followers/competitors and reacting to what they are engaging with. Unexpected trends pop up all the time, and your audience will see if you are the last to jump onto them. Allow time and space for you to react when necessary, but have a general plan of what should be posted in any given timeframe.
And, don’t forgot to follow up with your previous posts! Just because you’re consistently making posts that doesn’t mean that your sites are being used to their fullest potential. You should regularly look back at your previous posts and see which ones got the most engagement. Consider if the hashtags you used were beneficial or not (for a great guide on how/when to use hashtags, check out KWSM’s blog HERE). Analyze the data and then reflect any observations in your posts going forward.
For more information about how to keep up to date on digital marketing trends listen to our podcast Just a Taste with Wendi Liechty of KWSM: A Digital Marketing Agency. Also, check out KWSM’s Youtube for informative videos about various topics in digital marketing.