Have You Made Any of These 5 Social Media Mistakes?

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Social media is something that all businesses need in order to grow. When you get started, it can take a lot of time and effort to get things rolling. So you do a little research, sign up for a few accounts and add a little content, but haven't seen any results.

What gives?

When you use social media correctly, you can generate quality leads for your business Daisy Drew. You educate potential customers and interact with them earlier on in the buying process. If you are making some common mistakes, though, you won't see the benefits of utilizing social media for your business.

Here are five of the most common mistakes that businesses make with social media:

Overlooking SEO

Social media and search engine optimization are two peas in one pod. If you want to be successful in social media, you need to include SEO in your strategy. Use the keywords that fit with your business. These are the words and phrases that you would have found in your research, so be sure to include them in the content you create and share on your social networks.

Treating all social networks the same

Not all social networks are the same, so it's important to know what the differences are in order to use them to the most effect. Sites like Google+ and Facebook are visual networks. That means having photos and videos that will pique the interest of followers and fans.

Twitter is more of a news-based network so it is important to include links to more information in your tweets.

Measuring your metrics will help you better optimize your presence on each different network. Look for trends and patterns that come up in various types of content.

Overlooking social reach

In social media, it is important that you focus on the potential reach of your content. It is not solely for the people in your immediate connections. Social networking is about branching out. You never know where your business might gain a toehold with others so make sure you are doing what you can to reach out:

Email customers and prospects to encourage them to follow you on social media
Promote your profiles everywhere you can- add a link to your website, store signage, print ads, and business cards and emails
Create valuable content that others want to share. When they share your content, more awareness of your brand will be created, gaining more followers and connections with your business
Add social sharing buttons to your blog posts and web content to make sharing easy

Forgetting to generate leads

While it is important to create brand awareness, your business will not succeed unless you are generating and following up on leads that can be converted into sales.

Write an effective call-to-action in order to prompt people to take a specific action, such as signing up for your newsletter or downloading a free eBook. In exchange for the freebie, they will give you some info about themselves.

A good call-to-action will:

Use numbers to be specific
Create a sense of urgency with words like "today" and "now"
Tell people exactly what they need to do
Sit above the fold of the website

Passing over traditional marketing

Social media marketing is great, but it is not meant to be a complete replacement of traditional marketing. Not everyone is using social media; therefore, it is important to include other forms of marketing in order to be more successful. That includes print advertising and commercials for TV and radio.

A business needs social media in order to be successful, but it also needs to know how to use social media correctly. Making mistakes is not uncommon, but it's learning from those mistakes and making changes to your strategy that will make a difference in how much success you see.