10 Common Social Media Marketing Mistakes and How to Avoid Them

We are an agency that offers social media marketing, admittedly we have committed numerous social media mistakes ourselves over the past few years.

Mistakes that have cost us engagement, reach, and maybe even fans and customers. It is inevitable given the volume of posts we have scheduled on behalf of our clients (thousands of posts!).

Now that we have learned from many of those mistakes, we would love to share our top 10 mistakes, and how you can avoid them yourself in 2023.

Face it whether you’re a small business, entrepreneur, creator, or influencer you might find yourself wearing many different hats when running an online business. But as human beings we all make mistakes! But that doesn’t mean we should repeat the same mistakes over and over again until they become ingrained habits.

There are common mistakes everyone makes in social media marketing— sometimes these mistakes are beneficial, and sometimes they are not. The difference between a good mistake and a bad mistake on social media is using a data-driven approach to learn, adapt, and improve based on what your audience is telling.

Social Media Users Globally

Globally, social media usage has dramatically increased since the COVID-19 pandemic started in 2020. In January 2021, over a year into the pandemic, there were 4.26 billion users on social media, up from 3.8 billion the year before. This figure has climbed to 4.55 billion social media users as of October 2021, representing a 9.9% growth.

Despite this massive growth worldwide. there are numerous businesses that have not been able to get the desired return from their social media marketing campaigns. Every business owner needs an effective strategy to get a return on the efforts. But first, it’s important to take note of the common mistakes and avoid them.

What are the 10 Common Mistakes Everyone Makes in Social Media Marketing?

There are plenty of mistakes you can make while launching a social media marketing campaign.

If we listed out all the minor mistakes people often made, this article would be. Instead, we will only focus on 10 common mistakes that you are more likely to do when you start getting involved in social media marketing.

Here’s a quick overview of the social media mistakes we’ve been making until recently:

1. Being on all social media platforms
2. Not having a content marketing plan
3. Don’t assume what content your audience likes on social media.
4. Failing to Acknowledge Mentions & Shoutouts
5. Misunderstanding the concept of engagement
6. Being too focused on quantity, not quality
7. Not measuring results and making adjustments
8. Expecting an overnight success
9. Being too informal in your messaging
10. Thinking that it’s all about you

Mistake 1: Being on all social media platforms

More specific your content is, the better results you can achieve.

As a digital marketing agency that offers social media management, it is our responsibility to test various social media platforms in order to understand how each platform works for our clients, and to share what we’ve learned about succeeding on each social media channel.

Every additional platform that your business is active on requires additional time and effort to create a tailored strategy for that platform to build a community and engage with your fans.

Popular social media platforms in 2023.

While some platforms are excellent for content sharing, others excel in interacting with consumers and followers. Below is a brief description of some of the most popular social media platforms to market your business in 2023.

• • Meta’s Facebook is one of the oldest and largest social media platforms, with over 1.98 billion active users, but for the first time in history, their audience is gradually declining with the competition gaining increased market share such as TikTok and Twitter.
  • Instagram is a photo and video-sharing platform for charging visual content and for connecting with others through likes and commenting. Given Instagram is owned by Meta, it’s a user can curate their own personal profiles, and follow other users to see their content in their feed. As of 2023, over two billion people use Instagram once a month, making it the fourth most popular social app worldwide.
  • Twitter is a microblogging platform that allows users to share short text updates, called “tweets” of 280 characters or less. It’s a great platform for following news and current events, as well as for connecting with others in your industry or with similar interests. Twitter has over 330 million monthly active users globally with 5.8 million residing in Australia. The eight most popular social media platforms, with 13.53% of Australia’s web traffic referrals on social media came from Twitter.
  • TikTok a short-form, video-sharing app that allows users to create and share videos, set to music or other audio. It’s a great platform for creating and sharing creative, fun and engaging videos.
  • Pinterest is a visual discovery platform where users can discover and save ideas for fashion, home, travel and much more.
  • LinkedIn

Understand which social media channels are relevant

Bearing in mind that every social media has its pros and cons for connecting with others, sharing content, and building and maintaining relationships with your community. It’s important to consider which channels are relevant for your specific business and enable you to reach your desired target audience for your industry niche. Each social media platform has its own platform to provide insights on metrics like impressions, reach, engagement, comments, shares, links to profiles,s and much more. You can effectively measure which channels improve your brand awareness, reputation, or traffic conversions to your website and made data-driven descriptions on which platforms are performing best for your needs and goals.

By moving away from social media platforms that might not suit your business, or are not performing well for your business you can increase your efforts on social media channels that are.

Mistake 2: Not having a content marketing plan

Tailor your content, and remain focused, efficient & effective.

Developing a social media marketing strategy may appear to be a no-brainer, yet many businesses fail to do so effectively. A survey conducted by Content Marketing Institute found that only 30% of B2B marketers say their organisation are effective at social media content marketing. They fall into the trap of simply posting on social media with no genuine social media marketing strategy in place. Should you choose to adopt a social media marketing channel, you should treat social media marketing as seriously as you would any other marketing endeavor.

Five issues from having no content marketing plan

1. Lack of Focus: Without a plan, it can be difficult to know what kind of content to create and share, which can lead to a lack of focus and inconsistency in your message.
2. Inefficiency in posting
3. Difficulty measuring success: Measuring the success of your social media efforts and to identify areas for improvement without a detailed content plan and review process.
4. Difficulty in Reaching and Engaging with your Target Audience
5. Inability to achieve your business objectives

Posting too much about your product or brand. Don’t post every single thing that you do in your business on social media. It will come across as spammy and will not help build customer loyalty or trust in your company. Instead, focus on building relationships with your customers by providing valuable information that they can use or something entertaining that they’ll enjoy reading or watching.

Not understanding the different platforms well enough to know what works best for each one. For example, if you’re going to use Twitter, don’t just post links — tweet out valuable content like interesting articles or videos instead (and include hashtags between words where appropriate).

Mistake 3: Don’t assume what content your audience likes on social media.

Less advertising, build connections.

You may be tempted to think that everyone who follows your brand on social media is interested in hearing about new products, promotions, etc. However, this isn’t always true. A survey by Sprout Social found that 70% of consumers said that they feel frustrated when the content they see on social media isn’t relevant to them. Many people follow brands because they’re interested in the company’s people, knowledge, and activities— not every single product or service offered by that company. 91% of people believe in social media’s power to connect people. with 64% of consumers actively wanting to build connections with brands.

If you don’t have compelling content and it’s clear that you’re only posting updates to sell something, then people will start taking less interest in your content which will cause people to unfollow you, engage less with your content and social media algorithms will no longer prioritise your content in user’s feeds.

Mistake 4: Failing to Acknowledge Mentions & Shoutouts

Repost, reshare, comment, and like.

When someone mentions your brand on social media, it’s important to acknowledge them. This is one of the most basic mistakes in social media marketing. If someone mentions your account or brand on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, or any other platform, make sure you acknowledge them back. Don’t ignore them, even if they’re just a random person. This is your chance to make a good impression and build trust with potential customers. You don’t need to respond with a long message; something simple like “Thanks!” or “Awesome!” will do just fine. Or you could simply repost their content, but it should also be done in a timely manner — within 24 hours if possible. Not only will this show customers that you’re listening to them, but it will also help boost their engagement with your brand.

Mistake 5: Misunderstanding the concept of engagement

Create meaningful relationships with your community.

Engagement is a process that involves listening, responding, and creating meaningful connections and conversations with your community.

Too many business owners focus on increasing their follower count and increasing the number of times people see their posts. However, this isn’t actually what matters in social media marketing. Quality engagement is what matters most — not just likes but comments, shares, and retweets. The more engagement your posts get, the more likely they are to show up in your followers’ feeds. And when you’re only focused on growing your follower count, it’s easy not to pay attention to engagement metrics because they’re hard to track and measure.

While it’s important to increase the number of people following your account, it’s equally important that you keep them engaged by providing valuable content on a regular basis through daily stories, commenting, liking, and sharing.

Mistake 6: Being too focused on quantity, not quality

Quality engagement and timing for social media marketing

Social media is all about engagement. You want people talking about your brand or product — positively or negatively — because it means they care enough about it to discuss it with others.

The mistake many small business owners make is focusing too much on quantity over quality. They try to get as many likes, follows, and comments as possible without actually engaging with anyone. This might seem like a good idea at first glance because more followers mean more engagement right? Not exactly.

Having a smaller, highly engaged audience is more valuable than having a large, disengaged one as they are more likely to remain loyal and share your content with their network, leading to increase engagement and reach for your business.

Find the right balance

Posting too infrequently can make your miss out on opportunities, while posting too frequently can overwhelm your followers and make them tune out. Strike a balance by posting frequently enough to stay engage and informed, but not so often that it becomes overwhelming for your audience on the particular social media channel.

Avoiding cross-platform repetition is crucial. Only share content on multiple platforms if it is highly relevant to each one, as users can quickly detect repetitive content and may unfollow or block your account. Social media users are highly tuned to this kind of behavior and they may share their experience with their friends, potentially damaging your reputation.

Mistake 7: Not measuring results and making adjustments

Data-driven feedback loop

Social media isn’t just about creating content; it’s about having a clear understanding of your target audience and their behavior on different social media platforms. A crucial part of a successful social media marketing campaign is to understand and analyze metrics such as engagement rates, click-through rates, and conversion rates. With these important social media metrics, you can gain insight into what kind of content resonates with your audience and what doesn’t. This can help you fine-tune your social media strategy and create more effective campaigns in the future,

Analyze your social media data

Measuring the effectiveness of your social media campaigns also allows you to understand the ROI of your efforts, which is crucial for making informed decisions about where to allocate your resources and budget, By analyzing data on lead generation, sales, and website traffic you can determine how much value each campaign is bringing to your business and adjust your strategy accordingly.

Monitor spikes in engagement

Furthermore, it is important to be aware of the viral nature of social media. Knowing how long it takes for content to go viral, will allow you to understand when to expect to see a spike in engagement and when to begin promoting it to your audience. You can easily track the virality of your content by monitoring the number of shares, likes, and comments your social media post receives and use this information to create more viral-worthy content in the future.

Mistake 8: Expecting an overnight success

Consistency is key.

Social media marketing takes time. It can take up to six weeks for a post to show up on your target audience’s radar, and even longer for them to take action. Be patient and consistent before expecting results. You need to build up a presence on each relevant platform before you start seeing results. It’s also important that your content is targeted towards each audience specific to your industry niche — don’t copy-paste the same message across multiple channels!

Mistake 9: Being too informal in your messaging

Avoiding informal language

This is one of the biggest mistakes people make in social media marketing. Using slang and abbreviations in your messages may seem like it’s more relatable, but it can confuse customers and even turn them off from your brand altogether.

Instead, use a friendly tone, but don’t be too informal.

For example, “Hey guys! What’s up?” is fine, but “What’s up guys?” sounds a little too casual and might turn some people off.

Remember your followers want to feel heard and appreciated. People want to build relationships, so don’t treat your audience like they’re strangers. Don’t just send out a quick tweet or post saying, “buy my product!” or “check out my website!” without adding any personal touch to it. You’ll lose followers faster than you can say “unsubscribe.”

Mistake 10: Thinking that it’s all about you

This might sound like we’re repeating ourselves, but it’s a mistake we see time and time again.

On social media, it’s all about your audience and not just promoting your products and services. Constantly pushing sales pitches and promotions can lead to annoying your followers and losing them as potential customers. Instead, think about how you can help your audience with their needs or problems b providing helpful tips or information related to what they’re looking for at that moment in time.

The fact is social media is all about your audience. Real human beings are interacting with your business, so it’s crucial to address any issues quickly and honestly with your audience.

Instead of talking about yourself all the time, focus on what people want to hear from you — whether that’s useful information or entertaining content that relates to them directly or indirectly (or both).

Real content for real humans.

Your business may be virtual, but don’t forget that real human beings are interacting with it every day — and those human beings have feelings and emotions just like everyone else does! When something goes wrong in my business (and it inevitably does), we try to address the issue quickly and honestly so that my customers know there was no malice involved.

It’s easy to get caught up in the idea that social media is just another way for you to promote yourself, but this isn’t true. The best approach is to think of social media as a way to build relationships with potential customers and other businesses, this will lead to them coming back to your site and buying from you.

Social Media & Marketing Mistakes Conclusion

Leverage social media to attract more leads, close more deals, and make more sales.

As marketers, it’s normal to encounter mistakes in our strategies. Whether it’s overlooking the potential of new tools or spreading ourselves too thin on multiple platforms, recognizing these mistakes can help prevent them from happening again in the future. When executed correctly, social media marketing can be a powerful tool for any business. To make the most out of it, it is crucial to identify the tools and techniques that work best for your brand and be honest about what’s not working. By creating personalized strategies for each platform, you can ensure you’re getting the most out of your efforts. Social media marketing requires consistent attention to individual strategies and tactics, but the benefits are well worth the effort.