These days, brands in all shapes and sizes are posting actively on social media sites, trying to get their market’s attention. If you’re launching a new brand or business, you need to prepare to fight for some of the social user’s precious browsing time. Get ready to use your digital space the right way.
Social media marketing goes far beyond sharing photos, streaming live videos, or posting news. Even a combination of brilliant timing, insightful knowledge, and sharp wit cannot always guarantee success. So, if competition is tough, careful planning is necessary.
Here are five of the most common misguided marketing practices on social media today:
Misunderstanding Your Target Market
Take the case of Dove’s marketing team, for instance. They thought it would be a good idea to ask women to pick the right shape of soap bottle that matches their body type. The campaign drew a lot of flak from social media users. Dove misunderstood its market, because it failed to consider what women don’t want: being categorized and labelled.
The same thing applies in social media marketing. Knowing the market demographics means barely scratching the surface of your market profile. It is necessary to study your targets market’s principles and goals. Understanding your market means knowing what they value and why.
Sharing Fake News
It’s bad enough that the internet is teeming with fake reports and alternate facts, but we live in a world where social media users are too lazy to verify the accuracy of a ‘shocking’ news before spreading it out. If you have to share news and current affairs, do it methodically. Run a bit of research. Study the reputation of the publication that originally published the story. You will lose your market’s trust if they cannot trust you to sort fact from fiction.
Redundancy
Your Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat and other accounts are probably followed by the same readers. So, instead of posting the same thing across all channels, think of ways to make your post unique for each platform.
Some digital advisers would even advise against having accounts in all the social media channels. For your market to stay close to you, you should really focus on them one social channel at a time.
Flooding
If there’s a developing story (say, you’re reacting to a live broadcast or a big news), your series of relevant tweets and status updates would be acceptable to some extent. On normal days, however, stick to a minimum of three posts a day, with a maximum of six.
Social media users generally log on to their social accounts around brunch, lunch, and dinner time. These are great timings for posting new updates. Even if you’re posting just three items a day, your reach will be good enough as long as you follow the right schedule for posting stories.
Poor Support Communication
Being on social media does not only mean you would be promoting your brand. It also means you will be opening your door to anyone who can leave a comment on your page. Make sure you can reply to the comments right away.
Should you receive some form of complaint on your page, make sure you could address the issue in a calm and professional way. This way, other followers could see that you are able to handle concerns in a professional and timely manner.
Written by Manish Agarwal, Brand Head at Zee Entertainment Enterprises and a Digital and Social Media Strategist from IIM Calcutta.