6 Reasons Your Brand is Failing at Social Media Marketing

Everyone’s doing it. Social media marketing, that is. And, some are doing it better than others.

Take a look at six reasons why your business has yet to master social media marketing.

1. Your social media marketing strategy consists of a Facebook page. “Social media” is more than Facebook, plain and simple. Many businesses (large and small) mistakenly place all of their social media eggs in the Facebook basket. Facebook is one small piece to the larger social media puzzle.
   
2. Your social media marketing plan … doesn’t exist. What’s that old saying? “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Like with any marketing effort, social media success begins with a plan.
   
3. You are using social media to sell. Nowadays, consumers don’t want to be marketed to; they are savvier than ever, and they are on to us marketers. Use social media to connect with them, not to sell at them.
   
4. You’re measuring success by number of “likes.” Be honest, are you a “new likes” watcher? Many businesses, especially those new to the social media world, focus on the number of “likes” or “followers.” There are other metrics to consider when measuring social media success.
   
5. You’re not measuring, at all. What’s worse than counting followers? Not counting, at all. Digital marketing activities offer up real-time analytics that allow you to see what’s working – and more importantly – what’s not working.
   
6. Your social media marketing efforts are not integrated. The importance of integrated marketing is a blog series, in and of itself. If your social media effort is not working with your overall marketing effort, it may be working against it.

Like all marketing, social media marketing is an art and a science. If used properly, your social media networks provide a word-of-mouth marketing platform, opening positive lines of communication with customers (and potential customers); this leads to satisfaction, repeat purchase, and referrals. However, blindly setting up a social media network without a thoughtful content and marketing strategy in place, is a recipe for disaster.

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