Facebook may have started as a platform for college students, but today, pretty much everyone uses Facebook—including businesses! No matter what industry you’re in, your company can use Facebook to connect with customers, reach out to potential new customers, and enhance your online image. But this social media platform will only help your brand if you know how to use it properly—otherwise, it could end up harming your online reputation. Keep reading for a look at common Facebook marketing mistakes and what you can do to avoid them:
Mistake: Posting Infrequently
When potential customers visit your Facebook page, they’ll likely check out a few different elements, including your posts. If you don’t post often or your most recent post is from a while ago, visitors might see it as a sign that you don’t care about your online image or connecting with customers. This can cause them to leave your Facebook page and visit one of your competitors’ pages, instead.
Solution: Creating a Posting Schedule
Maintaining an active social media presence is important if you want to reach out to potential new customers online. It can be difficult to come up with interesting content to post every day when you’re taking care of your other responsibilities, which is why it’s a good idea to create a posting schedule. This will make it easy to organize what content you want to post and when. You can even create multiple posts and use Facebook’s Publishing Tools to schedule posts to be published at future dates and times.
Mistake: Publishing Incorrect or Inappropriate Posts
Have you ever seen a brand post something on social media that either contained a typo or was somehow inappropriate? Unfortunately, this happens a lot more often than it should, even to companies that take pride in their online marketing strategy. When a company posts something that contains a typo or is otherwise incorrect in some way, it can make them appear unprofessional to Facebook users. When a company includes an inappropriate hashtag or phrase, it can make them appear unprofessional, ignorant, and uncaring of customers’ feelings.
Solution: Editing Posts Before Publishing
You should always read through a Facebook post a few times before publishing it, and maybe even have a coworker read the post, as well. This will greatly decrease the chance of you posting something incorrect. It is also important to thoroughly research hashtags and trending phrases before including them in your posts to make sure they are relevant and appropriate for your brand and target audience. Even hashtags that seem totally relevant to your brand can be about something different, so take the time to look at how other people are using hashtags before putting them in your Facebook posts.
Mistake: Only Posting Organic Content
As a business on Facebook, you can post both organic content and ads. Organic content refers to any free content you publish on your company’s Facebook page, while ads are content that you pay to promote. Originally, when a company posted organic content, all their fans would see it in their News Feed. In 2012, Facebook changed their algorithm so that users would only see content that they were likely to find relevant and interesting. This change meant that organic content posted by businesses would only be seen by a portion of their total fans, a change that still affects businesses on Facebook today.
Solution: Taking Advantage of Facebook Ads
If you only post organic content on Facebook, then only some of your fans will see it, and it will be difficult to build a larger Facebook fanbase. Luckily, Facebook Ads are easy to use for businesses of any size and in any industry. You can pay to create custom ads that Facebook will show to targeted audiences, which can help you get more fans, lead more people to your website, and convert more people into customers.
Mistake: Ignoring Negativity
Facebook allows users to communicate with the pages they “like,” which means your fans will be able to react to and leave comments on your page and posts. These reactions and comments will be visible to anyone who visits your Facebook page. This can be a good thing when it comes to positive comments, but what about negative ones? Some companies think ignoring negative comments is the solution, and others even try to delete the comments altogether. Ignoring negativity on Facebook can lead to a bad reputation and poor reviews.
Solution: Responding to All Comments
Instead of ignoring negative comments, you should view them as an opportunity to correct a problem and provide excellent customer service. Respond to any negative Facebook comments as soon as you can, being as polite and understanding as possible. If the customer has a problem, offer them a solution or even a discount on their next purchase. When you respond quickly and show customers that you care about their issues, they’ll be more likely to purchase more from you in the future.
It’s easier to avoid Facebook marketing mistakes when you work with a social media marketing team! At Pennington Creative, we can create custom social media posts along with engaging website content to help you build a better online reputation and bring in more potential customers. Visit our website for more information about our Tucson online marketing services.
