Social media sites were originally intended for people looking to socialize with others, even without personal contact. With billions of people now active on such sites, it was only a matter of time before businesses began to tap into the huge melting pot of potential patrons within social networking services. In his article entitled 7 Sins of Social Media Marketing, Mike Volpe of Mashable writes:

Remember when social media was a new, unchartered territory for brands? Consumers flocked to platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn overnight and marketers knew that, in order to stay relevant, they had to follow suit. Fast forward to today: 97% of marketers use social media to connect with buyers. The problem is, most still haven’t figured out how to leverage social to create a personalized, relevant and enjoyable experience for their audience.

Using social media for competitive online marketing in Greenville, SC and elsewhere has become one of the most important steps any kind of business can take. In fact, about 86 percent of marketers stated it is critical for their businesses. However, the relative ease of using these social media platforms poses a risk of making mistakes that could become detrimental to one’s business. Here are some of the most common:

All text and no pictures – People don’t usually like to stare at grey text. For instance, tweets on Twitter that contain an image have a whopping engagement rate of 200% higher than those with plain 140 characters. Simply put, people like to see something in action; not just words attempting to describe something at work.

Me, me, me! – Social media marketing must be a two-way street connecting a company and its customers. So if every post and tweet of a business only focuses on how great their company or product is, any individual’s first instinct is to just turn away from the page without even looking as it doesn’t inspire engagement.

Lack of the human element – To speak monotonously like a robot when it comes to online marketing content is a grave sin—and this is something that local Greenville internet marketing agencies such as Spark Local Marketing know a lot about and avoid completely. Humanizing a brand simply means that companies should always interact with their customers on a personal level using different tactics. This can be in the form of answering client queries, treating customers as partners, or anything that fosters and appreciates customer loyalty.

(Source: 7 Sins of Social Media Marketing, Mashable, August 29, 2014)