This is a guest post by Alyssa Clarke
The online world is gradually becoming more social day by day. People and different businesses can now connect each other with a few clicks of a mouse. Social media marketing is now a part and parcel of our daily lives and there is no point in denying it. The social media sites are very cost effective for the businesses to connect with the existing and potential customers. But can you just sign up for Facebook and Twitter and start promoting your company? I am afraid to say this would be a wrong approach. Social media is all about building relationships. If you want to have a better relation with the customers and want more and more people to hit the ‘Like’ button then you must avoid the five glaring mistakes in social media marketing.
1) Don’t over-promote
Social media is a slippery platform. On one hand you are spreading the message about your company and its products but at the same time you cannot irritate your customers or contacts with a string of promotional messages. If you overdo it, you are bound to lose your fans and followers. You can think of other information that your followers might be interested in and you can post a link to it. You should not use Facebook or Tweets for Press Release. Try to engage the followers in something which has value.
2) Listen & respond
It is estimated that 40% of online businesses do not respond to comments posted on various social media sites. This is nothing but bad business. When you do not respond to a negative comment, it is a poor reflection of the company and its policies. When you respond to comments people feel that the company cares and it helps to build the brand value. If there are positive comments then do take time to “Like” them to show the followers that you actually appreciate their feedback.
3) Learn from your experience
Through social media you can really find out what exactly the customers want. You can ask the people about their choices when they are looking for a particular product or service. You can use this information to offer better products to the target audience.
4) Use the social media share buttons
When you are posting useful content on the blog it should reach as many people as possible. The same goes for emails. You can post share buttons so that it becomes easier for the readers to spread the good word. This is a very easy way to increase the traffic to your website or blog. Most of the businesses around the world make use of this kind of exposure.
5) Proofread your posts
A post with grammatical errors and spelling mistakes is thoroughly unprofessional. Be patient and read your post over and over again to eradicate any possible errors. Make your posts error free and fully consistent all over.
Social media marketing is not an overnight affair. It will take time; so you need to plan a foolproof strategy in the interest of your business. If you do it right then you will be rewarded with new customers.
What social media sins do you see others committing? Which have you learned from?
(Image by Pink Sherbet Photography)
About the author: Alyssa Clarke is a blogger who also happens to be a tech buff. She loves writing, travelling and reading books. She contributes to Hydroxycut.
Hi Alyssa, this is a good post on social media tips.
Can you share with us specific examples of stellar success that you have been involved in with social media?
That would be very useful and interesting to see.
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Hi Alyssa,
thanks for sharing your insights. Over-promotion can be an issue. But even more so under-promotion. How many bloggers don’t even know that they are supposed to promote their posts ? If you don’t consider your stuff worth promoting, who will ?
Take care
Oliver
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Alyssa clarke Reply:
May 21st, 2012 at 10:22 pm
Hi Oliver,
That’s correct. Its only a blogger who will decide which blogpost to promote and up till when. excess of anything can wrong and this also implies with blog promotion.
Thanks for the read.
You too take care.
Alyssa
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Thanks for reminding us this wonderful insights of yours! I will consider this us my stepping stones towards success.
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It’s a sin to post a flood of tweets. Dude, I get it. You’re alive. Okay. Fine. Please stop spamming my timeline. Keep it up, and I as well as others are 200% more likely to unfollow. Definitely not good for business.
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Thank you ever so much for posting this. This is just the type of information that I need to constantly remind of what I’m supposed to be doing, and what I’m supposed to be avoiding. Over-promoting is a no-no, and can lead to loyal followers abandoning ship. Social media is a great asset for reaching, communicating, and helping others. However, if you misuse it, it will make you pay dearly.
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I love your post Alyssa! I am on Twitter and I hear you about not over-promoting. I see people do it all the time. I wonder if they are even aware spamming and over-promoting is hugely frowned upon. Not just on Twitter but on all other social media platforms like Facebook, Pinterest, etc.
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There’s over-promotion and then there’s lack of variety of posts. When social media marketers over-promote, their social media content gets sacrificed: no variety of information and a timeline of never-ending “product diarrhea”.
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Peter Reply:
June 7th, 2012 at 12:11 am
If you really do something for people you won’t overpromote it such not to become annoying. If there are thousands of notes about you in social media it makes me personally think of low quality of the services or products suggested.
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Hi Alyssa, thanks. I agree with what you say. My big problem is with #3 – when I ask people’s views I usually get very few responses.
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Alyssa clarke Reply:
May 21st, 2012 at 10:31 pm
Hi Evan,
Many people face the same issue while engaging is social media marketing. I personally give more importance to my email list than promoting my social profiles. You can also opt for a good email provider in order to grow your email list and responses. finding your most valuable pages and optimizing them also works most of the time.
Thanks for the read.
Best wishes
Alyssa
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Nice post with good information. Sometimes it is hard to balance the list you mentioned. Proofreading posts is so important, and it is surprising that more people don’t do this.
I hate to see posts with several typos or wrong word usage. Thanks for the info.Sally
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Alyssa,
There are several good points to note here. The idea of “over promoting” is one of them. Seems to be a fine line based on several factors. 1. popularity 2. Value add 3. Quality content and my favorite 4. Reciprocation.
I’ve seen many people link up multiple social sites only to have their wall or feed not being read my anyone. It’s an actual art form to create this draw and to build a community where you have influence.
One of the things I like to start new bloggers with is to help them create their sense of passion and purpose. Then together we identify a cause. Something that is bigger than them. When this is done correctly others align pretty quickly to that person. It’s not a “me” game but a “we” game now.
Thanks for the great tips.
Ken Pickard
The Network Dad
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Over-promotion always hurts you especially in social media. On social media people likes to have fun rather than reading marketing pitch, so give your readers fun while promoting your products and services.
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I agree with your points Alyssa especially the first one.. I have seen webmasters posting twice or thrice a day. People are interested in genuine and informative post rather than anything related to daily chores.
Beside this social media provides a window to analyze your competitors and learn from them.I don’t think webmasters making much benefit of this either.
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For successful marketing it is necessary to go for moderate way but do your action with consistency. Have a always fruit is your contents for the interest of your readers.
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Everything in the world have merits and demerits. ALYSSAGCLARKE,you have raised leaning points about social media marketing.
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Thanks for the info on Pinterest attributing to social media agendas. Sometimes it is hard to tell. Many people have huge following on the social platforms they are using to promote their business but they don’t make use of their fan base to promote their email newsletter!
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I totally agree with you Alyssa. Over promotion is not good. As for your second point, listening and responding to both positive and negative comments/reviews is important, it shows that you care and stand by what you offer.
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Never thought about making a Facebook Share button available on my blog. Thanks for the tip!
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Hi Alyssa,
I think your second point Listen & Respond is particularly important for online business owners like myself. Like you point out, I have noticed that a lot of online sellers do not respond to comments. When I am on facebook for example, I try not to just promote something and leave. I like, share other people’s information, and respond to comments.
Super important tips, thanks!
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Using of Social Media effectively is a smart way to use it as a tool for Marketing, Even for Government Elections. But most Marketers are not aware of the dos and don’t of Social Media Marketing and they end up wasting their time of using it. Socialization is the important key to success your Social Media Marketing strategy to get clients. Trust is the only key to success on this and if you have to work hard to gain it.
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A good point about promoting a value content on social media. We cannot encourage people to share our social media posts if we keep posting poor posts that are useless for others. People must find a value of your social media page in order to like/share it. Thanks for sharing this article!
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I think people have a set and forget mindset sometimes for the Internet. You have to be active working it just like any other business tool. Thanks for the article.
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I agree with you – over promotion is painful and looses you visitors, as does posting too often and/or posting garbage rather than value.
I think it is also important to build up something before you start to promote it – so have a website or blog in place, make it good and THEN build a social media presence as (for a business) the purpose of social media is to bring people to your business, not just be popular.
It is also annoying to see people concentrate on numbers rather than substance – I don’t care if you have 10 or 10,000 followers as long as what you post is interesting and relevant to ME. And personally I’d prefer 100 good followers who may buy from me or help me than 10,000 who never will.
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