7 Social Media Marketing Mistakes Your Ecommerce Business Should Avoid

Social media marketing gives enormous opportunity for eCommerce businesses to increase their customer base. Nowadays, more and more shoppers are mentioning the influence of social network on their purchase decisions. A well-planned social media strategy will go a long way towards introducing your products and service in front of more potential buyers.

Moreover, social media marketing is considered as the word of mouth marketing and  for an eCommerce businesses; it plays very crucial role if planned properly. But, it is vital to know the biggest mistakes eCommerce businesses make when trying to improve their marketing using social media.

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#1 Not Using Social Media Management Tool:

One of the important things you need to take into consider is that ‘dead’ social media account is really worth than having not one at all. There is no meaning of creating a Facebook page for your business if you are not able to remain active on it. If you want to maintain your presence on Facebook then frequently you need to share interesting content.  However, maintaining a presence on social media is time-consuming work and requires extra efforts. So in that case social media marketing tools makes your sharing easy and effective.

But the main problem of using these tools are, it mess up your brand page with their branding. Here, I will explain you with the example of Hootsuite.

As shown in the above example, When you shared something on Facebook page or profile with using automation tool like Hootsuite then it shows “Published by Hootsuite” with your post. So it’s very irritating to show someone else’s brand name or product name on your profile or company page.

I have tested various tools and found Mento which understands the importance of branding and allows you to have your own brand name when any content shared on the Facebook page. With using Personalized Facebook branding feature, you are able to share something with your own brand as shown in the second image “Published by DigiFloor” instead of automation tool name. It also helps you to share content on Facebook without affecting on branding as well as it drives traffic to your page and website.

#2 Don’t Post Irrelevant Content

Every once in a while it may be okay to post something to make people laugh, but generally, posting irrelevant content can weaken your brand value and your company’s reputation.  We know every time posting about business or products on your Facebook page reduce your existing customer’s interest. but, ensure that you are not posting too much funny, boring or irrelevant posts on your Facebook page that your audience won’t be able to relate to it. Whatever you want to post whether it’s an image, video or text post everything should be a reflection of your brand.

Post variety of content on social media but don’t go out of context. For example, If you are running a company that makes sports shoes, it doesn’t make sense for you to post about a start up project just because you liked it. Being on brand is an important forecaster of engagement- just because people like your product doesn’t mean they share all of your interest, so give them a mix of content related to the product.

You have to bear in mind that social media is not advertising platform but rather, it is an opportunity to build an engagement with customers.

#3 Not Using Proper Hashtags

With the aim of getting more visibility or attracting more customers to their store, many companies are using an irrelevant hashtag on social media. Using trending hashtags gives more visibility and likes or even promotes your products or services but ultimately that harm your brand. So, better to use proper hashtag because that helps you to make engagement with your target audience as well as makes the positive impact on your brand.

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Nowadays, hashtag plays an important role in successful social media strategy because it has its own meaning, purpose and importance. Don’t just ignore irrelevant hashtags but use limited hashtags on individual post. We have seen lots of businesses use more 15 – 20 hashtags in individual post and that leads to low engagement rate and sometimes visitors also dislike your page.

Each and every platform has it’s own benefits of Hashtags use. As per QuickSprout Hashtag guide users get 21% higher engagement on tweets with 1-2 hashtags on twitter.

#4 Delay In Replaying On Social Media

Now a day’s Social Media is a primary platform for consumers to connect with brands for any query or questions related to their eCommerce platform. Your customer expects a fast response when they address a brand through social media. 50% of consumers give only one week respond time for their query to any brand before they stop doing business with them.

Also it is found that more than 70% of users expect to hear back from the brand they are interacting with on Twitter and 53% want a response within the hour.

Social media is known to be one of the best fastest marketing channel with a quick response time. If you delay in responding to your customer then you will lose the game. When it comes to social media 42% of consumers, expect 60 minute respond time and 32% expecting responses within 30 minutes. Replying quickly is very important because no one likes to be ignored. Quick response will help businesses to build a good image by showing that they are engaging with customers and looking to solve their problems.

#5 Don’t Pay For Likes Or Followers

The number of followers you have on social media channels doesn’t matter. You may be having thousands of followers. But, if they don’t have the need and capacity to buy your product or service then it doesn’t make any sense to have this kind of likes. If you are targeting these people then sorry you are targeting wrong audience.

[Tweet “If your ultimate goal is to build genuine customer relationship then don’t pay for likes or followers”]

If your ultimate goal is to build genuine customer relationship then don’t pay for likes or followers. Because when you are paying for fan count and likes it only increases your numbers but doesn’t give engagement with your audience. Actually paying for fan count and likes damage your brand after some time and it is a bad method so you should avoid this. Organic likes always boost your engagement rate and sales because they are the real audience for your business so stop spending money to buy likes or followers.

#6 Not Responding To Your Followers

Generally, people will likely use social media to ask you questions and want to get some information from you. If any customer purchased products from your site and not satisfied with the product or any other facility then he/she will turn to your social media channel to post their complaints. Those who have questions about your products may also use Twitter to ask you questions. It is also found that 24% unhappy customers turn to social media to talk about their experience.

Make sure that you don’t ignore your customer’s queries and feedback. If you don’t respond to your followers then it shows you don’t care about those. Moreover, dissatisfied customers may also leave negative reviews about your products and services that result in a negative brand image of your ecommerce business. So here you can respond your customers by answering their queries whether it’s in comment sections, on page or private message. That not only shows you are really concern about the customers that but also defines your interest in engagement.

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#7 Promoting Your Products To Everyone:

One of the most common mistake eCommerce businesses make while using social media is promoting their products to everyone. Traditional marketers have been making these mistakes since long. So instead of promoting your products to everyone you should choose your target audience wisely. Lots of social media platform like Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube and LinkedIn allows you to promote your brands and products on their platform. Each and every social media platform has it’s own audience so first decide where you can find your target audience and get maximum reach. Social media marketing allows you to target people based on their interests, age group, demographics, geo locations, gender and many more.

Make sure you are promoting your products to the targeted people who are directly or indirectly relate to it. For example, if you are selling jewelry products then target people who like jewelry pages, fashion blogs and similar context often now and then. Creating compelling content for your target audience is the best way to get high conversations.

Avoid making these common mistake and your ecommerce business’s presence on social media will be much greater and soon it will give you the desired results.

Image Credit – Shopify