Everyone is on Facebook these days and this doesn’t just mean your friends and loved ones. Businesses in all industries are using Facebook as an effective way to increase their brand awareness and to connect with their prospective customers. However, to be successful with it, Facebook marketing needs to be done right. Let’s look at 10 commonly made Facebook marketing mistakes you can avoid.
USING A TRADITIONAL MARKETING APPROACH
One big mistake that some, in particular new marketers are still making on social media like Facebook, is trying to use it with an old-fashioned marketing mindset. However, traditional marketing won’t work on Facebook at all. To be effective on Facebook, you will need an entirely different approach.
Facebook, before anything, is a platform where real people share what matters to them. Your marketing strategy must take this into account. Instead of hard-selling and over-promoting your product or service you need to make your Facebook a place where these real people (and potential customers!) will have a space where they feel comfortable, can communicate and are being heard!
When you go on social media, you need to leave your marketing mindset behind. See your Facebook as a communication platform to connect with people, before anything else!
USING A PERSONAL FACEBOOK PROFILE AS PAGE
There are several reasons why you should never use a personal Facebook profile to market your business.
First and foremost, doing so can possibly be in violation of Facebook’s Terms of Service. You definitely don’t want to spend some lengthy time creating a Facebook presence just for it being deleted without notice.
Secondly, personal profiles on Facebook don’t have the helpful analytic tools that would otherwise help you to get insight in how well your strategies work.
Thirdly, it would be perceived as non-acceptable by many people when a brand or business would send out friend requests, besides that doing so would come across as rather unprofessional.
USING FACEBOOK GROUPS FOR YOUR MARKETING
Similar as with Facebook personal profiles, Facebook groups are also unsuitable for marketing purposes. You can compare Facebook groups to forums. Their purpose is so that like-minded people can connect with each other. They are not intended for marketing and if you were to use a group for your business, a Facebook group likely won’t be successful.
USING SHORTENED URLS ON YOUR FACEBOOK UPDATES
It is unfortunate that even some popular social media marketing tools are making use of short URLs. You may perhaps not know this, but shortened URLs will get far fewer clicks as compared to normal hyperlinks.
Studies conducted not too long ago showed that full-length URLs can at times get up to 300% more clicks. Simply spoken, don’t use URL shorteners for your Facebook marketing if you want to engage your fans!
USING YOUR FACEBOOK PAGE LIKE A PERSONAL FACEBOOK PROFILE
This one may sound obvious at first, but there are still some who don’t know that a Facebook business presence using a page is an entirely different thing as compared to your personal Facebook profile.
While Facebook marketing using your page will still be done in a somewhat different and more social and relaxed way as compared to other methods of marketing, you will still have an agenda, want a good plan and a strategy. This is not the case with a normal Facebook profile. In other words, what you’re doing on your business page really isn’t the same as what happens on personal Facebook profiles.
POSTING TO FACEBOOK AT THE WRONG TIME
For almost any type of social media marketing, the right time when you post can make all the difference! You don’t want to post when people are at their job or when they are asleep. You want to post when everyone is online. There are several good apps and tools out there that can help you find the best time for your status updates. Check out Facebook Insights or Post Planner to find the best posting times for your particular audience.
TRYING TO SELL TOO MUCH
Be aware that people normally don’t go on Facebook with the intention to buy something. They log on to Facebook to have fun, to communicate and to check on their friends and relatives.
Trying too hard to sell your products or services on Facebook will make you stand out like a sore thumb and will net you very little success. A Facebook user won’t care too much about what you offer, but may be interested in related things. Think about it, if you were to use your page to merely promote your business and products, why should anyone want to spend considerable time on this?
To give you an example, let’s say you have a store that sells kitchen appliances. Your audience on Facebook sure may love it when you share healthy recipes but they wouldn’t want to spend a lot of time on your page if it’s only about blenders and juicers that you have for sale.
TRYING TO SELL TOO LITTLE
As we talked about above, you can easily fall in the trap trying to sell too hard on your Facebook. In the same way however, you could also make the mistake to sell too little or nothing at all.
There is a reason why you are on Facebook with your business, after all, and this is that you ultimately would like to increase your sales, get more leads or signups or whatever you have set as a goal.
If you are using your Facebook only for “entertainment purposes”, say by posting funny images or linking to other articles, or general fooling around with your fans, you may run danger that you will ultimately end up selling nothing at all!
BORING YOUR FACEBOOK FANS
When people go on Facebook, they don’t want to feel like they’re in school. If you however post lengthy paragraphs for your status updates, they may well feel like it! Not many people on Facebook like to read long winded stuff.
Keep your updates short and to the point. This will create much more engagement among your fans!
IGNORING YOUR FACEBOOK FANS
So, now you have a Facebook page. But this also means that you will have to actively maintain it. Your fans want to know that you are listening. Don’t ignore posts and comments on your page, even if they are not so polite. Nothing can be worse for your Facebook marketing than a page that appears abandoned with no one ever replying. If you are establishing a Facebook presence, you absolutely need to take some time and dedicate to it. Make it a habit to reply to your fans as soon as you possibly can! If you can’t, consider hiring a person for your Facebook management!
NOT HAVING ANY MARKETING GOALS
Any good marketing strategy requires that you lay out some goals beforehand, so that you know whether and when you have met those goals. Among your goals could for instance be that you get a certain amount of Facebook followers in a certain period of time, or that you increase traffic to your website. What’s important here is that you set realistic goals. Don’t just blindly go into Facebook marketing without having a real plan of what you actually want to achieve.
IGNORING THE FACEBOOK TOOLS AND APPS
Since we are already talking about goals, there are excellent tools available that can greatly help you with your Facebook marketing. One of the most important tools that you will have on-hand on Facebook will be Facebook Insights. Use it to your advantage! Facebook Insights can let you know about the progress of your Facebook marketing and it will be the tool that you need so you know when you have met your goals. For your Facebook page you can also find apps like event planners or contests that you should consider as well!
Good luck with your Facebook marketing!
