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The Biggest Mistake People Make with Social Media Marketing

Are you wondering why your social media channels aren’t bringing in the clients you are looking for? Do you spend hours working on your social media posts only to have nothing to show for it? Are you wasting your time, or could some small changes transform your digital presence?

Many times business owners focus on vanity metrics to judge how their social media strategies are doing. But here is the thing about vanity metrics - likes, followers, etc - they are worthless. They don’t mean anything if you can’t convert those followers or likes into paying clients.

How do you do this?

It’s really one simple step.

Connect your social media strategies to specific business goals.

Your social media goals should be a direct connection to your business goals.

Let’s break it down.

For this example, we are a business coach launching a brand new incredible online course on how to double your revenue in 2 months. This course should be a hit! You want this course to be what puts you in the black for quarter two and you’ve done the math. You need only 100 people to purchase the course for you to hit that revenue goal.

So you set a BUSINESS GOAL to get 101 people to purchase your course by the end of June. This is a great goal!

It is specific - 101 people to purchase the course.

It is measurable - you can see how many people sign up for your course.

It is attainable - your last course had 75 people purchase it so 101 is do-able with such a great product.

It is relevant - you coach people on how to grow their business so this course goes right in with your service line.

It is timely - you will either hit it or you won’t by June 30th and you will be able to see that immediately.

You decide that you really want to promote this new product on your social platforms - Facebook and Instagram. You have 50 followers on Instagram and 75 likes/followers on Facebook. Based on that information you decide your goals for social media are to get both those numbers to 150 followers/likes each. You think that even if all those people are the same (they follow on both platforms) you would have enough people to purchase the new course. But as June comes and goes you only have 75 people purchase your course. And you wonder what happened? Why didn’t this go as well as you expected?

The issue was that these two goals, to get 150 followers on Instagram and 150 on Facebook, were only loosely connected to your revenue goal. While social media likes and follows are great and easy to measure, the real goal you want to set for those platforms would be to have half of your purchases comes through your social media channels. This goal doesn’t depend on the number of followers you have, but on how you utilize your channels to promote your new course and connect with potential clients.

Social Media is meant to be social. So even if you hadn’t gained a single follower during that promotional time you have 125 warm leads (your followers and likes!) on those two platforms. So why not cultivate those relationships? Why not make sure the content you’re posting is speaking to your current audience instead of only working to attract new people?

The thing about cultivating a strong community on social media is that those who stay a part of it are usually going to stay loyal to you and your company, meaning more referrals, more connections, and more sales. Also, a strong community where people feel that is serious value offered with each post will naturally attract more people.

Focus on how your social media supports your business goals instead of trying to make it a separate goal all by itself. It won’t do anything for your business but take up your time and energy that you could spend on work with a higher rate of return.

Want some help to understand how to apply this to your business? Set up a FREE 30-minute consultation call with me!