Most businesses still approach social media marketing with lots of caution. A lot of social media influencers thought 2012 was the year most businesses would embrace social media marketing. But higher percentage of businesses are yet to benefit fully from social media.
Effective social media strategies have helped some businesses increase sales and generate more leads. Other brands just do a poor job of generating revenue directly from social, hence the need to stay away from social platforms. These are some of the biggest mistakes you can avoid in 2013 to increase your chances of social media marketing success.
1. Starting Without A Plan
You MUST have a plan and not just any plan, but a strategy that works. You should know where you are going, what you hope to achieve, how long you intend to achieve those goals. Have a plan of what to post, what to share, how to share it and where to share your content for maximum exposure.
2. Inactivity on your social platforms
One of the worst things you can do as a ‘social media manager’ is to set up social 
accounts without updates or getting your followers informed about what your business and how they can benefit from your product or service. If you intend to take advantage of social media, go all out and experiment with what works and stick with it. The important thing here is CONSISTENCY. If you can’t be consistent, the social media will not help your business – in fact, it MAY hinder it. You may not be active on all your social platforms, but you can be efficient on platforms that work and generate results. If you are going to launch a Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, etc account, make sure that you have the time and resources to effectively use them.
3. Little or no monitoring
The fact that you are on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, Foursquare or even Pinterest does not guarantee you will be successful at social media marketing. It’s a must to MONITOR your campaign. Identify what works, find out where you attract the most users or leads and double your efforts on your successful strategies. There is no point in scattering your resources when you can concentrate on what works and guarantees success.
4. Posting irrelevant information
In desperation, so many companies hunting for better engagement begin to share funny 
pictures, jokes and other content with their audience which do not have any relation with its products. Stay away from update, picture or information that is not consistent with what you have set out to do or achieve. People follow your or like your page because if what you started sharing or what you stand for. Do not jeopardize your social media campaign with irrelevant information. Do not be all things to all people.
5. Listening without responding
Perhaps one of the biggest mistake of any social media marketing campaign is listening without responding. Not taking time to provide good response to customer comments. Most followers on your social pages tend to ask questions about your product or service directly on your Facebook page or it could be a tweet in expectation of a response. Monitor these comments, feedback and respond to them on time.
You cannot simply blast a bunch of product information and call it a day. If you want to be successful on social media , you need to engage your fans. When a fan reaches out to you through social media, you need to respond quickly. Don’t just post product updates, but participate and build relationships. Remember your followers are real people like you.
