5 Common Social Media Advertising Mistakes

Regardless of the sphere of business you belong to, or what you are trying to sell, social media advertising can help you grow your brand and increase revenue. Something that you should always remember is that this type of advertising isn’t going to bring results instantaneously, and being present on social media platforms is not an easy task.

While working with different companies, and analyzing their online activities, we noticed a certain pattern when it comes to making mistakes in social media advertising campaigns, and we’d like to share them with you.

Inadequate Social Media Platform

Choosing the wrong platform can set you up for failure. Each social media network is unique and requires a different type of content, engagement, and different activity. You need to become familiar with strengths and weaknesses of each of the social media networks and see how they correlate to your business.

Also, every social network has its own unique audience, so understanding who you are targeting can help you decide where to focus. Your choice should also reflect your business goals, so making an account on every existing social media just for the sake of it isn’t going to cut it.

One more thing to consider when choosing a suitable social media platform is your expenses. How much time and money are you willing to invest in these campaigns? Knowing your budget, understanding your audience and your business goals should give you a clearer picture to base a decision on.

Poor audience targeting

One of the reasons social media advertising is so powerful is because of it’s capability to target the right audiences. If used effectively, it can lead to desirable results, but there’s also plenty of room for mistakes.

Many businesses are failing in their efforts to leverage the possibilities audience targeting can bring. One of the mistakes that often happens is casting too wide of a net, selecting broad interest categories which could help a brand build their audience in number, but not in quality. That means your message will reach people who don’t have much interest in your brand and are less likely to engage or to make a purchase.

The flipside is targeting too narrow of an audience. Ads that are too specific might bring you to a dead end – you could end up with a tiny audience that is almost impossible to analyze & monetize.

It’s like a superhero who is unable to handle their own power (Jean from X-men is a good example). You have these powerful tools – learn to utilize them correctly.

Forgetting Ads Once They’re Set

This could cost your business a lot of money. When you don’t monitor your ads, you’re essentially paying for something that might perform badly, but you’re unable to pause or stop it.

Keeping a close eye on important statistics like engagement and conversion to see how an ad is performing will give you insights into what your customers want and how you can reach them more effectively.

Ultimately, measuring and analyzing the results of your advertising will help you assess whether you are receiving ROI and achieving your goals, and if not, it still gives you the opportunity to make adjustments that will eventually bring better results.

Forgetting the CTA

CTA or Call To Action is one of the most basic rules of advertising. Yet, it doesn’t seem to be on top of the list for many marketers. Call to action is what brings results – and good results should be the final outcome of every social media advertising campaign.

All too often we rely on assumption that audience will do exactly what we want them to do – but how will they do that if we don’t tell them?

Using social media advertising you could invite people to subscribe to your mailing list so they will stay updated whenever you post new content. You could also use CTA to invite them to sign up for a webinar, read your whitepaper, or simply welcome them to read further about an offer on your website.

Naturally, not every single content should be used to push a direct sale, but it should be able to drive the right people towards the next phase of the buying journey.

Wrong Landing Page

Now that you have an interested buyer who has clicked the “buy now” button and is eager to learn more about the product on your website – they’re being sent to your homepage instead of that product page. They will now have to search around your website to find that product, and more often than not – they end up leaving without making any purchase.

One of the biggest mistakes companies make is having one landing page they send all of their paid traffic to. This is such a waste considering it comes from a paid advertisement.

It’s important to tailor the message on your landing page depending on the product or service you are advertising for, so people you advertise to will immediately see that they ended up in the right place.

BONUS TIP: Measure Your Social Media Success

Everything boils down to results, but for some reason, many companies measure social media marketing success by only counting metrics such as likes and followers, which don’t necessarily translate to ROI.

Instead, businesses should focus on metrics such as reach – how many people did they made an impact on with their message, engagement – how many people have been interacting with them, and most importantly, conversion – how many people took action because of their message.

Every effort you make on social media should ultimately move people along the sales funnel. By measuring results of your social media advertising activities, you will be able to learn what works and what doesn’t and implement change accordingly.

***

Social media can play a substantial role in your overall business strategy. At the end of the day, everything that you do should contribute to your business goals, so using social media can either open up the door to endless possibilities or fail the Avinash Kaushik’s MoR test, aka Money off Roof.

As he puts it, every business should ask themselves: “Would we create more social media activity if we took all the money we are currently investing in social media and threw it all off the roof of our office building?”

So there’s possibility that if you are making some of these mistakes you just might be throwing the money off the roof. And if you would like to change that, you can contact us anytime for advice.

Have you made any of these mistakes in the past? Or maybe ran into some others? Let us know in the comments.