Cringy Social Media Marketing Tactics To Avoid

Ok so here’s your chance to learn from some of our early (like 10 years ago) mistakes. So, you know how we’re all about establishing trust with our audience and creating content that you love. We mean that useful, in-depth, and relevant content that actually helps you grow your business. The stuff you love and doesn’t just waste your time.

With that eagerness to establish trust and create loveable content we’ve definitely made a few oops in the past. Sharing is caring so we hope this will help you avoid making the same mistakes we made.

1) NOT INCLUDING ALL “CONTACT US” METHODS IN PROFILE

We figured, the more we encourage folks to “click the link in our bio” to schedule a consultation, to ask us about our services, or to just simply start any type of correspondence with us then it would be the best way for EVERYBODY to get in touch with us. Nope…didn’t work. Not so helpful for EVERYBODY, surprisingly.

The fact of the matter is, not everyone wants to “submit a form” on your website, or email you to “learn more”. Believe it or not, there are some folks out there who still prefer human-to-human contact.

Not including all methods of contact (phone, email, address, etc.) for those who prefer traditional communication methods to start the buying process is a deterrent that decreases trust and could cost you leads.

2) PASSIVE AGGRESSIVE OFFERS AKA “FOMO” CONTENT

Back in the day (8 years ago or so) we thought it would be useful to use short-term FOMO (fear of missing out) content. This is the type of content that says “ACT NOW OFFER EXPIRES IN 1 WEEK”. The purpose of this content was of course to get folks to act quickly.

This is probably the worst type of offer for a service-based business’s audience. Don’t get us wrong, FOMO content can be used effectively by service-based businesses but this lead generation tactic must be used carefully.

Firstly, consider your audience and how they plan for their business investments. For example, most businesses have annual, quarterly, or monthly plans to make investments. Your offer should correlate to this goal-setting/investment strategy. Therefore, FOMO offers should be constructed to begin and expire on an annual, quarterly, or monthly basis.

We used this strategy with our recent website design offer. It was/is a quarterly offer. This offer began in mid-January and expires on April 30th. This is considered a reasonable quarterly offer.

Quick Facts About Social Media Business Pages

“Not all your posts are seen by all of your fans! Depending on which platform you’re using to measure reach, only about 2% to 5% of your followers would factor into a post’s potential reach.”

Source: Hootsuite: “19 Social Media Metrics That Really Matter—And How to Track Them”

Secondly, short-term FOMO content is NOT for EVERYBODY. It can induce bad feelings like anxiety, and even feelings of failure for the person considering the offer. The last thing you want to do is make your audience feel pressured into making important personal or business-related decisions as if you don’t have time for them to make up their mind. It’s just bad. Bad for business and bad for your prospective customers/clients. Give them time, this leads to less buyer’s remorse.

3) CONSTANTLY CREATING CONTENT W/NO CLEAR CTA

A CTA (call-to-action) is a phrase that is used to tell your followers (or anyone reading your posts)exactly what action to take after reading your post. What do you want them to do? If your post was created to just be pretty and liked then maybe a cta isn’t necessary. However, if you want to increase click-through rates to your website, or garner shares/comments then prompt followers to do so.

One of the reasons we made this mistake is simply because we figured “well common sense” should tell the audience what we want them to do right? Wrong! Common sense has nothing to do with it. Your audience can not read minds, nor should they have to make assumptions about which action you want them to take next. Be clear, tell them exactly how to “learn more”, “get a quote”, “Shop Now”. A simple “click the link in our bio to get 20% off” can go a long way to decrease confusion. Furthermore, once the prospect, lead, or customer clicks the link in your bio the offer should be there. No one wants to browse around your linktree, or website to guess how to access your offer. This too is a major deterrent. I did this because

Well it turns out that it wasted my time because…

Now, its your turn! What things have you done to try and [achieve goal]?