Right now there are many businesses trying to figure out how to cash in on social media. As of this writing, Facebook has over 400 million users and Twitter has over 100 million. Social Media allows businesses of all sizes to compete on a more level playing field. The problem arises when businesses get involved with social media because they feel they have to, not because they have put together a well thought out marketing strategy. To get the most out of social media make sure you avoid these common mistakes.

Excessive Broadcasting of Promotional Messages

Social Media provides a platform for you to communicate with your current and prospective customers. Success in social media is achieved by expanding your reach and building relationships with prospects you never would have found through traditional marketing channels.

You can’t build relationships if you only post promotional messages. It is important to let your prospects know when you are having a sale, but building relationships requires posting information that your customers see value in. Some example posts would be links to industry related articles, your blog posts, asking questions to help start a conversation, taking polls and surveys, or posting videos related to your industry or business. Post your promotions, but make sure you have several non-promotional posts between them.

Lack of Targeting

There are so many people on social media sites that you have to zone in on your best opportunities. Trying to accommodate everyone will not work. Before jumping into social media, first identify who your ideal customer is. These are the customers you are going to create content for. These are the customers that you are going to search for. Zone in on your ideal customers and your campaign will be much more effective than trying to accommodate everyone.

Not Having a Plan for Measuring Success

One of the most difficult parts of social media marketing is measuring the success of your campaign. Before venturing into social media, identify the primary and secondary goals of your campaign. Start with a clear picture of what success looks like. Once you have that image you can work backwards to identify both how you will achieve that success and how you will measure it. Some forms of measurement are your websites analytics reports, number of blog subscribers, Facebook insights (Facebook’s Analytics), and analytics from some of the url shortening services.

Avoid these three pitfalls of social media marketing and you will be steps ahead of your competition.

Have you had success using social media marketing? Tell us about it by posting a comment below.

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