Whether you’re just starting out in your digital branding journey, or you’re an old pro, these common digital branding mistakes will probably apply to you at some point. Nipping these in the bud as they occur will give your digital brand the best chance at success.
5 Common Digital Branding Mistakes (and How to Fix Them)
We’ve gathered up the four most common digital branding mistakes we see people making and have found the solutions for you. Let us help you to bolster your brand in the best way possible and avoid the traps that will draw people away from your brand.
SEE ALSO: What Is Digital Branding
Digital Branding Mistakes #1: You Post the Same Thing Everywhere
With the busy schedule that most of us live with, it may seem more efficient to post the same information in the same message across each social media platform that your brand is on.
However, even as you save time, you’re sacrificing the potential engagement from your social media community and clients.
Sending a message that says “I just posted a picture on Facebook” on a Twitter account will look like spam and will not create the need for engagement from your audience.
Bad move.
The Solution:
Each social media channel is different, and you’ll need to take the time to understand how each one works. Understanding the importance of the length of your message on each social media channel is a great place to start.
It will also be important for you to understand the differences in the people that frequent each social media channel. The will come to each channel seeking a different type of content. Instagram will be where they go for fun and intriguing images. Twitter will be where they go for a short comment on what’s happening. Facebook can be where you have larger articles or videos.
You need to know what people are looking for from each social media channel and then do your best to fulfill that need with your content. This will specialize your content and leave your followers feeling less like they’re constantly being bombarded with recycled content.
SEE ALSO: How Often to Post on Social Media
Digital Branding Mistakes #2: You Aren’t Paying Attention to the Return on Your Investments
Social media is no longer an optional part of your brand. It is an essential part of any good communication campaign. You already know that measuring ROI is important for other marketing campaigns, so why not with your social media campaigns?
The Solution:
When monitoring your social media accounts, it is important to keep in mind certain numbers. These are usually your followers, shares, retweets, and favorites. However, you can include others as you are reminded of their importance.
The most important thing to remember when keeping track of your metrics is that your social media goals need to be connected to your business goals.
This can be done by monitoring simple goals. For example, if you want to increase your website traffic by a certain percent, you can consistently measure how much of your traffic came from your social media accounts. This can be done with a free Google Analytics account.
SEE ALSO: How to Measure Digital Branding ROI
Digital Branding Mistakes #3: You’re Not Utilizing Facebook Ads
Advertising on Facebook has become a pay to play activity. It’s not enough anymore to simply push your posts, especially now that Facebook is separating businesses into their own newsfeed.
If you want to be visible to your viewers, you have to be involved with Facebook Ads, there’s just no way around it. Your ads are where you promote your brand so that Facebook users can find you, click your ads, and read your content. We already know how important content is, but if you don’t advertise adequately your target audience will never even see your articles.
The Solution:
Facebook ads are a pay per click, which means that they can fit any budget. They are also easy to set up. Facebook wants your ads to succeed because the more successful you are, the more successful their website will be.
It is important to remember though that although Facebook ads are easy to set up, they still require your involvement. You will have to spend time analyzing and optimizing your ads to make sure that they are working for you. Simply having an ad doesn’t mean that your target audience will be able to find you, especially not right away.
If you’re having a hard time taking care of your ads and their followup, you can outsource this aspect of your digital brand. Hiring Facebook ad management can be the perfect solution for a brand that wants the exposure of Facebook ads without allocating more time for it.
Finding a solution for your Facebook ad management is important to take care of, and to take care of quickly, to make sure that your digital brand makes it to your target audience.
SEE ALSO: Everything You Need to Know About Facebook Ads
Digital Branding Mistakes #4: You’re Using Social Media as a One-Way Tool
Social media isn’t just a way to shamelessly self-promote. That’s not why people visit social media sites. If you’re still under that misconception, then you haven’t adequately researched social media.
That being said, you just use social media to pump out one-way messages about your brand. Filling your account with press releases and company information with no other input or additions will make sure that you lose followers fast.
The Solution:
Instead of only posting what is new with your brand, join the conversation. You should be commenting on the latest news that will affect your brand and your clients.
When people comment on your posts, always be sure to reply to them. If you reply when other people engage with you, then they’ll want to engage with you more.
Starting a dialogue about a trending or emerging issue is also a great way to get feedback from your followers. Be sure to ask for their opinions in the posts that you create. It will be through these avenues that you’ll be able to create a meaningful relationship with your followers.
SEE ALSO: How Consumers Want Brands to Act on Social Media
Digital Branding Mistakes #5: You’re Doing Too Much at Once
There are so many social media channel options out there for a brand to use. There is Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google+, and Pinterest just to name a few. You might think it’s a logical solution to have a presence on all of these channels to be sure that you can reach all of your potential audience, but this might not be a good idea. Putting yourself on every social media channel and trying to post accordingly on each one could be spreading yourself too thin.
The Solution:
This is when you need to reevaluate your social media accounts. Find which ones are getting you great engagement. Are all of them working for you or only a select few? This is also a great time to find out what social media channels your competitors are using. You can even survey to see what your potential clients use the most.
It is always important to remember that the quality of your content is the key to your brand, not the quantity of your social media accounts. This is why it is so important to use your time wisely.
Develop an engaging social media presence on the social media channels that will work the best for your brand and leave the rest alone. If you ever feel like you need to have more later, then reevaluate and include accounts where needed. It’s all up to you and what your brand needs.
Final Thoughts
It’s pretty common in the beginning of your digital branding efforts to make at least one of these four mistakes. Sometimes we just get caught up with more is more and overwhelm our clients with too much of us and too much of the same information.
Following these solutions will help to eliminate some of these digital branding mistakes and put you in a much better position to connect with your clients in a meaningful way.
Have you made any of these digital branding mistakes before?
