Social media has quickly became a top marketing tool for large and small businesses alike. It is a way that you can gain traffic to your website and ultimately expand your customer base faster and further than you ever imagined. However, as great as social media has become there are downsides to it as well. I am sure you have heard about the horror stories of people getting emotional posting things they may not have meant on social media and then it causing them to lose their jobs, family, etc. It is not just individuals that can make mistakes. The same risk applies to businesses as well. One of the more scary thing about a social media business profile is that there are generally a few people that have access to these accounts so as the owner you must trust the person in charge of your social media campaign with 100 percent confidence. As we move into a new year there are new challenges and mistakes that a small online business should avoid. Our team of Phoenix SEO professionals looked into some of the possible traps in 2014.
- Unsure About Social Media – Most businesses have some type of social media presence by now but what you may be surprised to learn is that a large number of these businesses don’t understand how to run a successful social media marketing campaign. This is one of the most fatal mistakes to any social media marketing campaign. Keeping in constant contact with your customers is a vital part of running a business and one of the easiest and most efficient ways of doing this is through social media. If you are not able to run a successful social media marketing campaign then I would suggest you contact a professional and let them help get it off the ground.
- All Social Media Websites Have Equal Importance – Don’t be fooled by thinking that all social media platforms hold the same importance. It really depends upon what you are attempting to accomplish. For example if your main goal is to help your search engine optimization campaign then in 2014 Google Plus is going to begin holding a high importance on any search engine optimization campaign. Where as Facebook and Twitter may hold a higher importance if you are wanting customers to follow your business so that you can communicate with them.
- Tweeting To Much – Twitter is a powerful tool for small online businesses but you can end up running some of your followers off if you end up Tweeting 20 times a day. People who are following your business on Twitter are not looking for the samething that they may be looking for from their favorite celebrity. They don’t care what you are doing every minute of every day that is why you should try limiting your Tweets to between 2 and 4 a day.
- Hashtags – Hashtags have always been popular on Twitter but now they are even becoming popular on Facebook. So this means you should begin throwing out a bunch of hashtags, correct? Wrong, just because you can use hashtags doesn’t mean you should just begin randomly throwing out hashtags after every post.
- Becoming Complacent – Many people think that if they are getting a bunch of likes and shares that they’re running a successful marketing campaign. Well this could not be further from the truth. Getting likes and shares is just one step in running a successful social media marketing campaign. Never forget your end goal and that is for users to convert. So you need to take you campaign the extra mile and work on ways to begin converting your social media crowd into future customers.
Now many of the obvious social media mistakes still apply but these are 5 mistakes that our team can see small businesses making in 2014. Many of the mistakes of old have been corrected as people have become more familar with social media. There are a lot of mistakes that can be made on social media that is why if you are not comfotable with it we would suggest consulting with the professionals.