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Five social media marketing mistakes and how to avoid them
Five Social Marketing Mistakes to Avoid
presented by EdCopy
I remember when I was first starting out trying to be more active on social media channels. Everyone else made it look so easy. Seems like many people, including some teachers I know, had built an engaged a ship of followers with no problems.
But not me.
I was always getting tripped up by how much work goes into using social media to make a greater educational impact. And once I paid attention to what other teachers were doing, I soon learned that they too were making the same social media mistakes as I.
To be honest, it was pretty frustrating at times. What I found is that most people don't understand how much work goes into social media marketing. How do you get your followers to care? How do you get your content to stand out?
Now if you're a social marketing beginner, I can almost guarantee you're already making these mistakes — or if not, then you're going to be making them soon. And once these mistakes pile atop each other, you're going to find out that marketing yourself on social media is time-consuming, expensive, and sometimes, even painful.
Forget about trial and error. Forget about learning social marketing skills through the school of hard knocks. Instead, learn from my mistakes and save yourself time, frustration, and money. Read on...
Mistake #1: You don't know who you're talking to.
Almost everyone I know who tries to grow a social media presence ends up making this mistake. That's because it's counter-intuitive. If you look at it from a logical standpoint, you may feel you should try to communicate and shape content on social media to reach everyone; like you do in the classroom. Turns out that's wrong — you should target a specific audience and talk directly with it instead.
Mistake #2: You don't have a plan.
I made this mistake over and over when I was starting out. Let me save you from doing the same thing. Instead of trying to manage your social media presence on the fly, try making or taking a specific plan and calendar for sourcing and distributing media content every day. If you stick to that plan 'with fidelity' as they say, you'll see much better results.
My biggest challenge has been trying to make time for social media. I have found myself spending hours on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, but it was not leading to any leads, or even engagement with other educators.
Mistake #3: You don't have the right tools.
Most people don't even realize they're making this mistake until someone tells them. You can avoid this by getting real about your time. You already know that a teacher's life doesn't leave you with much free time and managing a social media presence adds more work to the load. Take advantage of software that lets you manage different social media profiles from one screen. A big time saver is the ability to schedule pieces of content to post automatically on future dates.
Mistake #4: You don't know what you've got.
If you ever ran out of content ideas when you were trying to post to social media more frequently and more consistently, then you were probably veering outside of your lane. It's a common mistake to make content about things you don't know that much about. One of the primary purposes you are online is to establish a reputation with an audience beyond your classroom. But don't make the mistake of trying to appear more authoritative by teaching what you don't know. Next time, try sticking to content related to your subject of teaching and see if you don't get better results.
Mistake #5: You're trying to do it alone.
I've saved the best for last. That's because many teachers think the solution is out of reach. However, you can completely avoid drowning under the gallons of content and distribution quantities that today's experts recommend by simply pooling your resources with others and sharing the good work. It's actually easier than you think!
In summary...
Give yourself a pat on the back for paying attention to this article. Because now that you know the top five mistakes and how to avoid them, you'll be kilometers ahead of all the other teachers who are trying to market themselves on social media.
When I started to learn more about the mistakes I was making and how to avoid them, I began to see my social media activity increase. My engagement rate increased and my followership grew.
So take this newfound knowledge and confidence and get to work; get to work; get to work, shawty; get to work!
Chime in with your thoughts!
What are some of the biggest challenges you have had to overcome in order to become more active on social media?
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