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Five Common Facebook Marketing Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

Five Common Facebook Marketing Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

The power of Facebook for marketers is undeniable. According to September 2013 data released by the social media giant, Facebook’s total monthly active users now exceed one billion.

But while it seems that Facebook should be a natural goldmine for winning new customers and keeping existing ones engaged, still many struggle with how to make their Facebook efforts pay off. The good news, though, is that by understanding the common mistakes that Facebook marketers make, and how to avoid them, you can greatly increase your chances of success.

MISTAKE # 1: Overly focusing on how many fans “like” your business page. While the number of fans that “like” your business page is certainly a good thing, it’s more important to make sure that your fan base is comprised of your target audiences, i.e. new and existing customers, employees, and those who are the strong supporters of your brand with the social influence and desire to tell their own friends and social networks about it. So make it a point to ask your loyal customers, employees, friends and family, etc. to “like” your page, at minimum, and reward them for spreading the word.

MISTAKE #2: Using your business page to just sell your products and services. Social media is a conversational tool and so it needs to be treated as such. It’s OK to let people know about a new product or special offer from time to time, but using it strictly as a billboard for advertising your business will likely turn people off and can eventually result in more existing fans “unliking” your page. Instead, try to create relevant conversations through your Facebook posts, such as asking fun trivia questions or sharing an interesting article that your fans might be interested in. Then when people comment on posts, be proactive in responding to them.

MISTAKE #3: Not having a plan. Before beginning your Facebook campaign, you’ll need a plan. Many businesses make the mistake of execution before strategy when it comes to Facebook. Your plan should identify your campaign goals, target audiences, strategies, tactics, and how you will measure results.

MISTAKE #4: Assuming that just because you are generating new posts on a consistent basis, people are reading them. With more than one billion Facebook users, it’s easy to get lost in the crowd. Your Facebook posts should be thoughtful, appealing, and you can often boost your response rates to posts when you include something visual, such as a relevant photo or video. If a particular post is important but not generating the kind of response or “likes” that you want, revisit the message and think about a better way to share it with your fans. It’s totally fine to post more than once about a particular message, but try to put a different spin on it and see if you get a better response.

MISTAKE #5: Not paying attention to metrics. Facebook Insights can give you a lot of good data about what is happening on your page, who likes it, what people are saying, and what they are doing about it. One good metric to pay attention to is the number of shares, which tells you who and how many people have shared a particular post from your page on their own Facebook timeline or a page that they manage. Sharing shows that your messages are being heard by your fans and with their own social networks.

In general, it’s important to remember that marketing success on Facebook often doesn’t happen overnight, but learning from past mistakes and how to avoid mistakes will definitely help.

Olivier Baudoux is the founder and CEO of DrivAd, a unique customer engagement program that matches organizations with their ideal brand ambassadors, turning them into motivated influencers for their products, services or causes in exchange for valuable rewards and a great sense of pride.

DrivAd was born in 2012 from Baudoux’s vision to create powerful and cost-effective ways for businesses to tap into their natural and most loyal brand ambassadors, who are typically under-utilized.

Olivier Baudoux
 

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