Social media is a lucrative platform for brands. There is sufficient interest in brands on the web, with over 80% of users in some platforms following at least one brand online. This interest is powered by the growth of the internet as an avenue for business. The number of sales carried out through the internet has been growing consistently as more users realize the convenience offered by the platform.
Users are looking on the internet and social media to find out more about products and brands. They will be more likely to trust your business and engage in purchases if you are active online. They will also be able to access customer service, which will help make them more loyal to your brand.
Even though going on social media can benefit your brand, failing to manage your social media activity can cost your brand. You may lose followers, and develop a bad reputation that may even affect user perception offline. How can you avoid harming your brand on social media?
Failing to post regularly
You should understand user preferences across every platform that you join. Knowing how many posts to make, how often to space them out and what times users will be more likely to interact with your content will help you develop a great posting policy. Failing to keep your pages updated could cost your brand interest from followers, which could affect engagement and visibility levels.
You should consider delegating these services to a social media team. Keeping up with different platforms can be overwhelming for any single manager, and may cause slower response times which may affect credibility.
Advertising your brand too often
Users on your social media pages are already aware of your brand and could be well informed about your products and services. They are interested in your page for customer service, user engagement, and informative, educative or entertaining posts. You could affect these users’ interest in your brand by continually advertising your brand.
Running one-off marketing campaigns
More than 70% of all online carts are abandoned for a number of reasons, ranging from high shipping costs to lack of sufficient research on the product. Even though you will be able to reach more people with your marketing campaign, there could be leakages that may affect the rate of conversions. If you are looking to maximize the impact of marketing on social media, you should consider remarketing. Users will be more likely to make a purchase a second or third time of viewing a product. Remarketing offers a greater potential since it involves marketing your products to people who are already interested and aware of them.
Poor social media management
Having a team dedicated to all aspects of social media will increase your ability to take advantage of the large market potential. If you are managing your brand’s social activity on your own, you could be missing out on interacting with your users. You will be unable to meet the high traffic across different platforms. You may also have a tougher time coordinating your posts, as well as be limited when it comes to developing content ideas. This could amount to poor social media management, which will reduce your brand’s potential impact and ability to sustain a large following.
Ignoring user engagement
You should make a point to interact with your users, responding as fast as possible. Users on social media expect a real-time response to their query, which may impact future trust levels in your brand. More people will be willing to trust brands that offer timely and comprehensive answers and reactions to users’ engagement with them. The spike in the use of social media for customer services requires that brands are active online to maintain high satisfaction levels in their brand.
Ignoring negative comments
You may be tempted to ignore negative comments, complaints and other strongly worded queries. Your brand could suffer some customer loss, due to the lack of service for these users. Other followers may be influenced by a large number of un-responded negative comments as well, which could lead them to avoid making purchases with your brand. It could impact overall sales levels, as well as influence your brand’s reputation which could affect future attempts to market on social media.
Avoiding paid advertising
If the internet is the future for brands, paid advertising options are the inexpensive marketing tools to help raise brand awareness levels. Some brands may consider these adverts as unnecessary, but they offer better success rates than radio, print and TV platforms. They also offer users the ability to monitor return on investment, which can help shape future campaigns. Paid advertising can even help you target potential customers by demographics, location and online activity, which will make it easier to reach your preferred audiences. You may save some minor expenses by opting out on paid advertising, but you could be losing large marketing potential with better results.
Some platforms can be challenging for new users. If you are not already on Instagram, you will have trouble reaching the type of exposure you expect. While people may follow a brand on the site, they are unlikely to show interest in brands without a larger following or high user engagement levels. Buying 50 Instagram followers could help get you started on a difficult platform, which may offer an increased likelihood of brand awareness on the platform. This will make it easier to have more views, which will be key to getting more people to know about your brand.
Final word
The internet has great potential benefit for your brand. Through social media marketing, you can reach potential clients better and increase your level of sales. You will be better able to create a loyal following by interacting with your audiences, making sure to respond to any engagement in a timely manner.
In order to maximize your brand’s social media profile, especially if you are active across multiple platforms, you should consider delegating different functions to a social media team. You will be more likely to protect your brand from the overlapping function, as well as manage user engagement across different platforms, which could boost the performance of your social strategy.
