As we glide haphazardly, stomp hungrily, or walk kinda dopey-like into 2022 (your entrance depending largely on what you did the night before), you’ll want to start afresh, turning over a new leaf and leaving 2021 behind. “Twenty-twenty-who?” You’ll ask casually.

You’ll want to dig out a pen – nay, a quill – and paper – nay! A parchment – and begin with that centuries-old tradition of a New Year’s Resolutions list. And what pledges shall we make to both ourselves and to our comrades in business?

We shall endeavor, of course, to leave the ghost of Christmas past behind (the ghost consisting largely of all of our old social media marketing mistakes). No longer shall these mistakes tarnish our sparkling reputation as pioneers of the digital realm! Instead, we shall sally forth with some of the best applications for business out there – social media apps!

So, without further ado, here is our list of the eight most common social media marketing mistakes that we should steer our proverbial ship clear of this year.

In 2022, we will not:

1. Spread Ourselves Too Thin

While it might indeed feel very tempting to cast our nets over all the waters of the digital realm, it is a false hope that we shall catch more fish, or followers, with that method. Nay, instead, it is a much smarter endeavor to conserve what little energy and motivation we have and focus on a couple of areas, such as profitable b2b marketing strategies and just a couple of platforms.

We might see the likes of TikTok soaring high and think of following suit, but we don’t want to end up like that poor besotted fellow Icarus and fly too close to the sun. In other words, instead of trying to whack every mole and fail at successfully hitting any, we should focus on a couple of social media platforms and techniques.

By finding out where our target audience spends most of their time, we can put our efforts into those platforms. It’s also useful to assess how people interact with every platform.

2. Ignore Great Contributions

User-generated content is pure gold. There’s no need to search the seven seas or mythical lands when you have followers tagging your products in their posts and offering great stories and videos featuring your brand.

A big mistake many companies make is to simply “like” such content and leave it at that (or ignore it altogether)—what a waste. Apart from the fact that folks tagging you in their posts are more likely to be super-fans and deserve more acknowledgment than a mere “like” (you want repeat customers after all), by tagging you in their stories on Instagram, you then have the power to repost their stories in your stories.

This shows other followers the great feedback and appreciation you’re receiving. It also shows that you care about your customer, which is important to consumers when deciding who to buy from. After all, answering comments is one of the best ways to stand out in customer service.

3. Look the Other Way When Asked a Question

Your social media platforms are not just a space to bellow out enticing facts about your incredible commodities. They’re a bridge between your brand and your customers. They’re a space of connection and kinship.

You wouldn’t go up to someone on the street and shout at them to buy your product and ignore any questions they asked, right?

Your platforms are a space to practice and hone your customer service techniques. Many people choose to ask questions on social media over the “old telephone” method. So it’s vital that you address their concerns and answer their questions as well as possible, even if it’s an activity you set time aside for once a week.

As it’s such a public setting, it also looks good to existing and potential customers. If they can see that you engage with your audience and offer solid customer service, they’ll likely have a more favorable impression of you and your brand.

4. Lack of Dynamic Media

Pictures are nice and all, but sometimes you need to shake things up with something a little more dynamic. The benefits of images are many, including the fact that they’re easy to screenshot and share. However, video content can add an extra layer of fun and interest to your brand. They bring it to life and offer you a chance to further hone your brand story.

You can make all sorts of videos:

• How to get the best use from your product
• FAQ videos
• “Meet the team” or behind the scenes videos
• Tutorial videos for different ways to use your product or services
• A collage of user-generated content

Videos are a great way to take your brand to the next level on social media and show off your talents, as well as show off the fact that you have a great vision and “get” your audience.

5. Put Pennies into the Wrong Purses

Spending money on the wrong things, or without a plan, rarely works out well. If you do gain something from it, it’s haphazard and tricky to measure. It’s good to have SMART objectives for your social media marketing plan, especially when it comes to spending substantial amounts of time or any amount of money on some aspect of it.

SMART stands for:

Specific

Measurable

Achievable

Realistic

Timely

Keep your marketing budget in order. So anything you want to spend money on should be monitored in order to measure the success of the technique used. More generally, your marketing should follow a carefully curated plan based on previous years’ plans.

6. Showboat

In other words, don’t over market yourself. Make sure to include a diversity of post types, not just promotional. Some examples of types of posts to include are:

• FAQ posts: Where you answer the most common questions you receive.
• Real people posts: Posts showing genuine customers using whatever it is that you sell, which gives your brand a more down-to-earth, approachable feel.
• Competitions: Occasionally, it’s nice to do a little giveaway or competition. They make people excited and generate engagement. Competitions are also a great way to get plenty of user-generated content that you can use in the future, as well as new followers and potential new customers.
• Review posts: It’s hard to find a better advertisement than the words of a happy customer.

While everything you post on social media will likely be geared towards driving sales in the long run, it’s important not to appear overly promotional. Folks want to be enticed, not pushed!

7. Bombard People with Lackluster Content

A common rookie error is to be in such a rush to post regularly that you end up blocking up people’s feeds with irrelevant posts. This can end up feeling like spam and quickly result in folks hitting the “unfollow” or “unlike” buttons, which is the opposite of what we want.

While it’s important to post regularly so that people get chances to engage with content, you don’t want to shoot yourself in the foot by posting about subjects that aren’t relevant to your brand or spammy.

You can think of your social media presence as an email list, portfolio, and interaction station combined. When you go to your page on, say, Instagram, you’ll want your page to look aesthetically pleasing while also being on-brand.

8. Forget the Interests of our Devoted Audience

Finally, and this one links with the point above, you don’t want to forget about who your audience is. If you don’t know who your audience is, it’s time to figure that out. You can get to work to find out the general age groups, geographical locations, interests of your audience and tailor your content towards them.

You wouldn’t ramble on at length to your relative with no interest in history about the socioeconomic implications of World War One (or maybe you would, no judgment here). You want to produce content that your audience is genuinely interested in.

You might think, “Well, if they liked our page, then maybe they’re already interested in everything we would post?” Mmm… not necessarily. You want to keep your finger to the pulse, so to speak, of what your audience finds interesting or special about you and play to your strengths.

So let’s kick the ghost of Christmas past (politely) to the curb and embrace a great new year with new approaches. 2022 will be the year of targeted, interesting, varied content. It’ll also be the year of good social engagement and focused organized efforts.

Author Bio

Jessica Day is the Senior Director for Marketing Strategy at Dialpad, a modern business communications platform that takes every kind of conversation to the next level—turning conversations into opportunities with powerful features such as Dialpad video calling software. Jessica is an expert in collaborating with multifunctional teams to execute and optimize marketing efforts for both company and client campaigns. Here is her LinkedIn.