By now, every company is painfully aware how important social media marketing has become. No doubt, if you’re reading this article, you’ve engaged, attempted to engage, or at least thought about engaging social media in marketing your products or services. But at some point you have to ask yourself: Am I just diving into this because I know it’s what I’m supposed to do? If so, you could be making rookie mistakes and not even realizing it. So, how can you tell if you need to rethink your approach?
You don’t have a plan.
True, social media marketing can be a lot more flexible than traditional kinds of marketing. You’ll have room to play around with on all kinds of different platforms. But if you don’t go in with any kind of strategy or plan, you might be wasting your time. You’ll need to understand why you’re doing what you’re doing to make it most effective, and tie it together with your other campaigns.
You don’t make distinctions.
Social media is an evolving landscape. There are many popular platforms, all of them with unique features, unique uses, and unique demographics. If you’re only using facebook because that’s all you’re familiar with, or worse—if you’re indiscriminately bombarding the internet with a generic campaign, you may consider taking a step back and contemplating a more focused approach. Research the new platforms, and see how you can take advantage of their natural strengths and weaknesses.
You’re relying on other companies as models.
Don’t misread that—you’ll need to see what your competition is doing if you want to be ahead of the game. But trying the same old tricks everyone’s already seen isn’t going to win you any new business. You need to identify what kind of approaches work well on what social media platforms, then use a creative twist to stand out. Try something crazy, and unique to your brand! The internet is overwhelmed with mediocrity, and you want to rise above the rest.
