5 Social Media Marketing Mistakes to Avoid in 2020
- by Alyson Shane
Are you planning to invest more time and resources into your business’ social media in 2020?
There’s a lot out there about what you should do in the coming year, and the marketing trends to keep in mind… but what about what not to do?
Just in time to start planning your next year’s marketing strategy, we’ve got a list of the top 5 mistakes to avoid.
So dig in, take note, and start preparing for a successful year on social media:
1. Failing to plan your strategy
Here at Starling Social, we put our clients through a rigorous onboarding process that involves creating multiple, brand-specific documents like:
- Audience/buyer personas
- Copywriting style guide
- Affiliates and competitors lists
- Company info sheet
- Content calendar
- Social media master strategy document
- How-to documents per social network and deliverable
This might seem excessive, but going through all this work beforehand means that we have a deep understanding of who our clients are before we begin posting on their behalf.
It also means that we can explain our reasoning to our clients, and refer back to agreed-upon documentation when making decisions or reviewing a process.
2. Not doing audience research
Spoiler alert: your audience isn’t “everyone.”
One of the reasons why we build audience personas is to develop a better understanding of exactly who we need to be talking to online.
This research matters because different demographics of people spend their time in different places online. For example, a B2B salesperson in their mid-40’s is more likely to be spending time on LinkedIn than Instagram. On the other hand, a millennial is much more likely to be spending time on Instagram than LinkedIn.
Audience research also helps you understand the specific pain points felt by different people who might want to buy from you. Having a deep understanding of their pain points and how your business solves them is critical for effective social media marketing.
Use our guide to building effective audience and buyer personas, and make sure you’re marketing to the right people in the right places.
3. Using engagement bots or buying followers
Some brands who feel anxious about their social media following may feel tempted to “invest” in tools that automatically like and comment on Instagram posts, or in purchasing followers to boost these numbers.
If this is something you’ve considered, we strongly suggest you reconsider. Here are two reasons why:
- Fake engagement doesn’t build real relationships with your followers. People want to buy from brands they trust, and that means spending time showing them that you’re paying attention by doing the work of manually engaging with them.
- Fake followers don’t help your business grow. Fake followers aren’t people who genuinely care about what you have to offer, which defeats the purpose of having them. Sure, having 20K followers might look great. Still, those 20K followers don’t have any value because they aren’t genuinely interested in buying what you have to sell.
We talked about how using engagement bots is against our company values in one of our older blog posts, which you can read here.
4. Posting on too many social media networks
The key to staying ahead of the competition on social media in 2020 is to identify the best social networks for your brand and to develop individual marketing strategies based on those platforms.
Spreading yourself too thin across too many social networks stretches your resources. It often leads to poor implementation of your social media marketing strategy.
Doing the audience/buyer persona research, we talked about earlier is critical to determining the best places to spend your time. Once you’ve identified the top 3-4 social networks, focus on developing unique and exciting marketing messaging for each one and hone as you go.
5. Ignoring LinkedIn and Pinterest
We’ve seen a resurgence on LinkedIn throughout 2019, and this momentum appears to be building as we move into 2020.
40% of monthly active users use LinkedIn every day. People using LinkedIn typically use the platform to find new and relevant content, which makes them more receptive to anything you may be sharing.
Pinterest is a unique social network because it acts more like a search engine than other social media networks. Even better: pins on Pinterest can continue to drive traffic to your website for years after your initial pin.
Avoid these social media marketing mistakes in 2020
Building a social media presence that generates awareness about your brand and grows your business takes concerted time and effort.
By keeping these mistakes in mind, you can avoid some of the pitfalls marketers find themselves in, and create a lasting, positive impression about your brand in the minds of your followers.
So what are you waiting for? Start planning and get posting!
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Want help developing a social media marketing strategy that gets results for your business? Drop us a line and let us know how we can help.
