Often with social media, brands and businesses think they can just jump in and get going. I mean how hard can it be? Often the results are less than favourable, with users either breaking core guidelines of the marketing platform they choose, or worse still ending up with a PR disaster that can’t be erased from the web. Here are the top 10 mistakes with social media that we’ve seen organisations make.
1) Setting up the platform(s) incorrectly.
There are often technical rights and wrongs with many of the social platforms which exist on the web today. For example. Facebook offer ‘brand pages’ and ‘personal profiles’ to control spam, and prevent abuse inside their network.
Unfortunately many organisations fail to realise this, and often select the wrong options when setting up their profiles, with the end result being, at best inherent limitations, or at worst a ban of that brand from Facebook entirely.
Limitations include: The number of ‘fans’ a business can have. ‘Brand pages’ have no limitation, ‘Personal Profiles’ have a limit of 3000 friends. Other limitations include no ‘widget’ support for personal profiles (a feature Facebook provide showcasing fans).
2) All push no interaction
Social platforms work best when brands weave themselves into the existing conversations which are happening out there on the web. There’s absolutely no point in just pumping out your blog posts, or new content daily into the echo chamber. This is the age of pull versus push. Offer solutions to people’s problems by listening and monitoring for key phrases related to your brand, and offering solutions via your content.
3) Failing to suitably project your brand voice
People respond to people, so being authentic in your marketing message is imperative. With social media, the micro content ecosystem which exists inside these networks presents an opportunity to project your brand values. You are what you share online, but the way you say it says something about your brand. Is your brand slightly edgy? Or upbeat and friendly? Let your message reflect those brand values and voice.
4) Expecting instant success
Building an audience online is hard. (Like climbing Everest hard). Yet marketers expect instant results from social media efforts. You can’t expect to spend one week on Facebook, and grow an audience of over 10,000 people – it simply isn’t going to happen.
The more your own brand grows in stature on these networks, the more rewarding social media marketing will become. The more interaction you receive, ultimately the more natural, organic social traffic and success you will be able to bring to your project.
5) Obsessing over fan / follower numbers
Success at social media can’t be measured by simply counting how many fans you have versus the competition. Engagement is where it’s at.
Social networks such as Facebook can determined the quality of the content you produce by examining sharing statistics, and how engaged your audience are. Inside Facebook, this algorithm is known as ‘Edgerank’.
In simple terms, this algorithm is used to prevent the stream from getting clogged with rubbish. Therefore, the higher the quality of your content, the higher the percentage of your fans that will see it.
Aim to organically grow your fan base, by sharing information which will be re-shared and liked by others. It’s far better to have a highly engaged audience who will spread your message far and wide, than a massive audience who don’t respond to anything.
6) Me. Me. Me Marketing
Another common mistake made by brands, is failing to provide variety in the message and content that they produce. No one wants to be spammed with your content 24/7, that’s not what they signed up for. Learn to emote your brand values through other finely curated content you find useful from around the web will gain you much more respect and interaction from your audience.
7) Failure to prepare for consumer questions
Often social media provides a simple channel for people to communicate with you – in many cases it’s a 24/7 helpdesk that the web community will expect you to man. One of the easiest ways to create a PR nightmare for yourself is to forget to prepare for the inevitable questions that you will receive, or worse still, ignore them completely.
If you have a number of different people looking after a single social media account, it is especially important to maintain notes about any previous questions asked, or on-going support issues.
8) Trying to control or stifle the conversation
Traditional organisations and brands typically struggle with the new shift in the marketing message that social media brings. There’s no such thing as deleting information from the web anymore – once you say something, it’s out there for the world to see.
In many cases attempting to revert your misdoings can result in the amplification of the original content (known as the Streisand effect).
Best practise advice is to not say anything in the first place, and if you receive negative criticism, take it on the chin, and defend your position with dignity. Jumping in with both feet first is not the best way to enamour an audience.
9) Failing to measure success
Marketing without measurement is dead. You should know after one week which platform is working the best for you and why by measuring via your website analytics exactly which social platform resulted in the most goal completions. (Whatever you’ve defined that to be).
You should also measure interaction both on and off your website, which gives you some insight into which platform is building your brand engagement.
10) Failing to understand your audience
You need to get up close and personal with your audience to understand exactly how and why they are using social platforms. You have to take the time to really understand how your customers connect with each other online, and how you can add value to existing conversations. Only then will you be truly able to connect with and identify with them.
Airing during the Grammy’s this recently released ad from Google tells the story of lost memories. Like most great stories, the script behind this ad was conceived from real life, actually from one of the team members on the Google+ team. All of us can relate to a similar event somewhere in our lives where such data loss has affected us emotionally .
Although its a brilliant advertisement in its own right – instant upload in my opinion is equally as brilliant, both in terms of execution, and its bravery.
If we take a step back, and look at the wider picture bringing such a feature to the world can’t have been an easy decision to make, but its the sort of feature every company should be striving to release. Its new and bold, and innovative.
This isn’t a copycat me too initiative.
When it comes to social networking and indeed the web itself, there have been countless privacy war cry’s circling above Facebook and Google’s heads in recent years – and for good reason. They control so much of personal data that it would be nothing short of careless to ignore the issue. When instant upload was announced as a feature, Google must have been only too aware that the knives would be out. (and they were).
But they did it anyway.
When you take a look at this advert, and realise the real impact that such a feature has on the everyday person on the receiving end of phone theft and loss..suddenly, you get it, and respect that someone has had to be brave to bring that functionality to market.
This isn’t a well trodden path. Right now we are relying on innovative companies such as Apple, Google and Facebook to forge those paths for us, break through a few boundaries – and find the sweet spot in new areas of privacy, technology and social platforms. Every now and then we should examine just how brave we are being with the software functionality we release, or whether its just following someone else’s risk free path. I’ll leave you with a closing thought from philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.
‘Talent hits a target no-one else can hit. Genius hits a target no-one else can see.”