Struggling to get a worthwhile return on your marketing efforts? You’re not alone. The majority of businesses that ‘try’ social media marketing dive in headfirst without a game plan, and find themselves wasting thousands of dollars weekly in the process.
Promoting your products on platforms like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube or TikTok may look easy from the outside, but that’s because it’s designed to look effortless. Behind the scenes, there are countless hours of strategy and research behind the simplest meme.
So if you’re one of the millions struggling to get your page off the ground no matter how much time and money you throw at the problem, this is for you. Here are the Top 3 costly mistakes we see in social media marketing every day.
Selling Too Early
The average person needs to see your brand a minimum of 7 times before deciding to purchase. Whether images, text posts, influencer reviews, or organic content: no matter how good the product, exceedingly few people will buy on the first view.
While this can be a blessing- it means one bad review is unlikely to ruin a potential purchase- this minimum quantity of exposure also has the effect of requiring a potential customer to be presented with your product multiple times. Which, bluntly, means you can’t bore them.
Open up your current social media platform of choice, and view your homepage. Does your timeline look like a QVC catalog? If every piece of content goes in hard for the sell, you’re going to burn out your customers quickly.
What to Do Instead
Instead of making every content an ad, focus on providing value in the form of:
- Entertainment
- Inspiration
- Education
This can look different for every industry. For supplement brands, we usually put together health and exercise guides (that have the great benefit of doubling as lead magnets) and center content around helping build a lifestyle outside of just our products. This way, we have your trust when you do go looking for a supplement.
It’s not just health this applies to, however. Entertaining introductions to staff, inspiring content of your founder’s story, and yes, even riding trends with funny memes and stylish editing, are all great ways to get some of those brand exposures without turning off your customers with the hard sell.
By creating a mix of these styles of content, rather than purely product showcase, you create a personality and style for the brand alongside naturally building trust and awareness. In competitive niches, it’s the only way to stand out as unique.
The Result?
Once you stop seeing your social media as a loop of advertisements, and instead a platform to inform, entertain, and inspire, you no longer need to dump thousands into underperforming ads to lukewarm audiences.
Instead, audiences will flock to you! Free of charge. And the stronger relationship they have to your branding is likely to lead to a longer, stronger connection of consistent purchasing behavior, instead of the lucky impulse buy.
Are you ready to stop wasting your ad dollars?
