Social Media Traps You Must Avoid

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Social Media Traps You Must Avoid

 

Social media is a valuable and necessary marketing tool for all kinds of businesses. It is one of the best ways to raise brand awareness and connect you to your audience. From this it can also help to grow your business and generate leads (if done correctly).

Here are 6 traps that will destroy your social efforts:

1) Not having a plan

Social media should be treated like any other marketing strategy. The first thing you need to do is set out a plan. Most estate agents just jump into social media head first with very little thought, which in the majority of cases is a complete waste of time.

2) Being too social

Yes social media is a great marketing tool, yes it can help your business but spreading yourself too thin will just overwhelm you. It doesn’t make sense to sign up to every social network, start with one or two and focus solely on growing your audience. If you can’t get one social channel right, don’t attempt to sign up to another.

3) Being inconsistent

Leaving your social account blank for an extended period of time is one of the worst things you can do. Posting once a week isn’t enough for social media, if you are serious about your social efforts than you should aim to post at least once a day. Staying active is the key to building a following and increasing brand awareness.

4) Using it for sales

Social media can help to grow your business and generate sales but forcing your properties upon your audience isn’t the way to go about it. This kind of forced marketing will only annoy your audience and deter them away from your social accounts. The only way to succeed with social media is to add value by providing relevant information that your audience will appreciate.  

5) Avoiding engagement

Social media isn’t about forcing your voice on an audience, it is a two way street. The key to social media is to build a following that matters. Share other people’s posts, ask questions, answer questions, like, retweet and share. In other words, be social. The more engagement, the better.

6) Not monitoring

With any kind of marketing, the only way you can find out if you are doing the right thing is by monitoring and analysing the results. I don’t mean simply tracking how many fans you have, this won’t help at all. Instead look at individual posts and comments. Keep an eye on social analytics such as Facebook Insights to see what you are doing right and wrong.

You can also monitor your Google Analytics to measure the effectiveness of the landing pages from your social media channels.

There are thousands of estate agents using social media but only a very small percentage of them are finding any value from their efforts. Make sure you aren’t falling into any of these traps, if avoid them you will soon realise the true value of having a social media campaign. 

Luke Stanley