5 biggest social media marketing...

5 Biggest Social Media Marketing Mistakes – and how to avoid them

© Kris Olin | DigPublish

MISTAKE No. 1

Missing Identity

Social Media is all about interaction between people. Real people and real companies, brands and products. The biggest mistake you can make when using any of the social media tools and websites is not to have a proper identity, a face. Whether it is a photo of yourself, a logo, or even an avatar of your choice. It is amazing to notice that there are still people, even so called professionals who still make



this mistake. Surprisingly, even Facebook still has lots of users without a ‘face’. You’d think that if you belong to a social network called ‘Face’book the first thing you would is to upload your photo in to you profile. The worst thing you can do to your social media

credibility is to present yourself as a ‘faceless’ person. Social profiles without a picture are generally treated as suspicious. Even a generic image or a picture of your dog is far better that pale, white ‘non-person’.

There is an old marketing saying that

“Adding a picture of a pretty girl increases your sales by 10%”

Time and time again, this small change has proven to be working in just about any advertising campaign. Incidentally the same works with a pretty boy as well, but not as effectively. I just received a notification from Google+ this morning.

The common procedure of getting more followers on Google+ is to go and follow a person that you’d like to follow you back. It’s called ‘adding to circles’. This works quite nicely if you know the person who is following you. But, if you don’t know him/her normally you would like to find out some more details before you follow back. If they



don’t even bother to show their face, why would you bother to find out more about them? Well, I don’t - and in this case I didn’t. Straight to the trash! Here is another example from another popular people network LinkedIn. As you’d know LinkedIn is like Facebook for business people; and when you are connecting with business people it’s even more important to show yourself as a trustworthy and credible person.

The ‘business’ person who sent me this invitation had not bothered to add his picture in his LinkedIn profile and therefore his invitation didn’t include it

either. How would you react if you received a business invitation to connect and share from a person who doesn’t even want to share his face? Exactly. I wouldn’t connect with them either. Straight to the trash! How to avoid this mistake Ok, I guess you got my point there. If you already have set up some social networking accounts for instance Facebook, Twitter, Stumple Upon, Google Profile etc. make sure that you include your picture in you profile. That is actually the first thing they ask you to do when you sign up anyway. I you do that and send me an invitation to connect you can be pretty sure that I will!



MISTAKE No. 2

Hard Sell

This is a traditional beginner’s mistake. Especially one-man businesses or small companies are easily guilty of this. You go online and get yourself some cool social media accounts and a few people to follow and ... you start selling right from the start!



Buy this, and buy that! All you do is talk about is your products and how great they are. Well, guess what? It’s called spamming! And people hate it. Especially if you are just starting your online journey to the exciting work of social networking you might be tempted to start ‘marketing’ straight away. If you go off like a car salesman from the get go people will unfollow you faster than you can say ‘special discount’. How to avoid this mistake Pace yourself. Even if you are aching to tell the world about your awesome new gizmotron or your revolutionary super service, don’t. Start of by just having a normal conversation with your audience. Post some interesting links about the topics they might appreciate. Give something

away for free. Share something cool with your followers. Once you get the hang of this then every once in awhile you can throw in a commercial message. When you do try to make it so that it is not perceived as an obvious sales pitch. Share it in a way that would be useful to you audience. If you do it too often though, your social media account will surely crash and burn. Remember, if all you do is sell, sell, sell people will leave, leave, leave.



MISTAKE No. 3

Wrong Target Audience

You might have the best product or service in the world but if your marketing efforts don’t reach the right audience your business is pretty much doomed. If you are selling weight lifting equipment, but you advertise in a bridal magazine chances are that no- one will buy your stuff. Well, maybe female body



builders would, but that would not make your pay day in the end. Ok, that example is a bit obvious and over the top, but I’m sure you get the picture. When you are doing business online and promoting it using social networks it is essential to make sure that your target audience (Twitter followers, Facebook fans, Google+ circles etc.) are actually interested in your products or services. Otherwise you’ll just end up burning your creative advertising energy (and money) on deaf ears. How to avoid this mistake Before you do anything online, or offline it is always a good idea to think about what kind of a consumer profile does your normal customer have. How old are they? Are they male or female; and does it matter? Where do they live? What do they like? These kinds of questions help you target your promotional efforts more precisely to the type of

audience that will actually appreciate your message and eventually might buy something from you. Ask questions. Do customer research, ask your Facebook and LinkedIn Group members, do a poll on your Facebook Fans. Send Email questionnaires or use online surveys such as Survey Monkey. Find out exactly what makes your audience tick.

When you are using online advertising services such as Google AdWords or Facebook Ads, pay close attention to the targeting options when you are setting up your ads. Get these wrong and all you get is nada and a big invoice.



MISTAKE No. 4

Talk, talk, talk...

Have you ever met a person who talks all the time? Pretty annoying isn’t it? They go on and on about their business and pay no attention to you or what you might have to say. After 5 minutes all you can



think of is how to get out of the situation as fast as possible. Us humans want, and need to talk to each other. Discussion and debate is one of the distinctive characters that separate us from the (other) animals on this planet.

Discussion is a two way street though. You need to listen as well as talk. But not at the same time,

however, some women do seem to possess this amazing talent! It is the same on the social networks. If you do all the talking on your Facebook Wall, Twitter feed or your blog you are in trouble. You are risking your fans and followers, and pretty soon you will end up talking to yourself. Your audience goes away. How to avoid this mistake Listen. Listen and understand what is happening at the social forums you participate in. When you see an interesting comment, go ahead and reply to it. Get a conversation going. Ask questions. Make polls. Like other people’s comments, Retweet often, @reply to tweets sent to you. Again, share something cool. That sort of thing...



MISTAKE No. 5

Mixed Branding

The mixed branding mistake is common when you don’t have much experience in advertising or communications. When you create different social profiles for you or your business they all look very different to begin with. If you don’t customise them according to



your corporate image that are all going to look like they are from a different company. Your audience won’t know that it is you when it goes from one social website to another. This will hurt your image and confuse your potential clients. It’s like comparing apples and oranges.

You need to look like an orange on all of your social networks. (Apple was already taken...)

How to avoid this mistake First up, use your logo everywhere. Use the same corporate colours on all backgrounds. If you have a punch line, use it always in the same format. Be consistent on each social network so the same information is listed. Use the same font if you can. In essence, this is the basic formula:

Your business card & stationary = Your website design = Twitter profile picture & layout = Facebook Page picture & landing tab = You Tube Channel design = Any other social platform that you use

If you make yourself look the same on each and every social media platform then your audience won’t get a mixed message about you, your company or your brand.



Bonus Tip

Claim All Your Profiles

It is a good idea to own all online profile names that are related to you or your business. First and foremost you should claim the .com domain name to your own name. Today. If your business is local get the localized domain name as well. Then, get the Facebook, Twitter, Google+, YouTube, Flickr, StumbleUpon, Klout, MySpace, Quora and other social network names. Also remember to register your bit.ly shortener usernames. Do the same for your business. The social website usernames are all free, so even if you are not planning to use a profile now it is very important that you own that name. You don’t want to wake up one morning just to find out that your worst competitor is using your name on a popular social media platform.



What Next?

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About the Author

Kris Olin, MSc (Econ.)

Kris Olin is a Web Designer with a Masters Degree in Marketing, MSc (Econ.) Kris is specialized in social media marketing, Facebook advertising, SEO and Internet promotion strategies. Kris consults companies on their online marketing and is the author of the Facebook Advertising Guide. You can follow @krisolin on Twitter and Facebook

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5 biggest social media marketing...

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