When you are trying to rally up your companies marketing efforts, it is easy to see what other companies are doing and try to copy what you see them implementing. It’s easy to look over the shoulder of a competitor and see what they are up to, hoping to catch a glimpse at a suggestion that you should replicate. But when you do not fully understand what it is that they are doing, it is easy to waste a ton of time and money on going about it horribly wrong.
Digital marketing efforts by companies put a focus on interacting more with both already existing customers and prospective customers to provide them with a more immersive experience that represents their brand. This is the objective, but not many companies execute this objective, as well as they, think that they do. It’s as easy as going on a company’s social media account and scrolling for just a few minutes to tell that their digital marketing efforts via social media are unsuccessful.
Below are a few reasons as to why your social media accounts are causing your digital marketing efforts to flop.
It is Not Enough Just to Have a Social Media “Presence”.
Companies and brands look around and see that everyone else is on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. They see this move to the digital space and get freaked out that they do not have accounts where their competitors do, so as a knee-jerk response—they make accounts on those platforms and feel better now that they have caught up with the rest of the pack. The issue is that many companies and brands stop there, or barely do anything with it what they just set up.
Having profiles and perhaps updating it once every other week is certainly not enough to make your company stand out, which the primary goal of social media is marketing. Social media marketing is just that –marketing. Although it may not look like it has that much pull-on sales and bottom lines, it should be treated as such due to just how much importance the average customer puts on it, and if customers value you and place their eyes on it, you should too.
If your company has social media accounts, be sure that they are being utilized to the fullest and not just left sitting there. It can actually do more harm to your brand if it is left forgotten and unattended, so either makes a point of keeping it active or close it down.
People Want Quality Content, and They Want a Steady Stream of It.
People want content, and they want it to be authentic. What they want through authenticity is fresh content that is exclusive to your brand. Stock and generic photos, lazy body copy, and content that looks identical to other posts similar to yours are great ways to turn off followers, and will eventually get people to unfollow you all together as time wears on.
It is not enough to have a single tweet go out over the course of a week or even a single day due to the constant fight for attention and memory of the modern social media scroller. The average social media user is browsing their newsfeeds for about 1 hour and 40 minutes a day, according to a 2015 poll by Telegraph. Post after post passes under the screen of every viewer, so having your new post pop up only once for a brief moment over the course of the viewers entire day will hardly make an impression unless it is full of amazing content. Be sure that if you are posting, post regularly and post frequently, and make each of your post truly unique to your brand and company.
Of course, sometimes you just cannot post a few times per day, every day (even though there are tools that make it so that everyone can, like Hootsuite or Sprout Social). Even if you can only post something once a week on your social media platforms, make sure that whatever you post is genuinely authentic and represents your brand. When it is truly fresh and authentic, it’s potential to be shared, re-tweeted, or up-voted shoot upwards –and that shareability is gold for your companies digital marketing efforts. That’s what it’s all about!
There is Not Enough Interaction between You and Your Audience.
Another sin that many companies commit that hurts their total digital marketing efforts is that when they create and manage a social media account, they use it as a megaphone, and not a telephone. The difference is that social media is a tool that should do both speaking and listening, not just shouting over a crowd.
According to Mark Schmukler, Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Brand Strategist at Sagefrog,
“Social media is a valuable inbound marketing tool that can entice leads to reach out to you, rather than the other way around. When used properly, social media marketing won’t look like traditional outbound methods that technically ‘interrupt’ a user’s activity, but rather will enhance their social media experience and place your company top-of-mind when they’re in need of your specific service.”
Listening to followers and fans, and even replying to them and creating a dialogue with them, is the best way that you can get feedback from people who really care about your brand and product.
Your brand will more than likely receive DM’s (Direct Messages) from concerned fans or devoted followers with issues, and the tendency may be to pretend that these messages do not exist. Fight that urge to pretend that you only have happy and satisfied fans, and try to reach back out to them and address their concerns and ask questions as to how you can make their guest experience better. This can reveal holes in your service or produce ideas on how you can serve your customers better. Your customers will feel heard and involved, which generates brand loyalty, and you gain free ideas and straight- from-the-field analysis on how to better your business.
