10 Worst Facebook Marketing Mistakes To Avoid

Are you guilty of bad Facebook marketing? It’s okay if you think you are because we’re to put a stop to it! Gathered “we all make mistakes”, we understand why there are still some businesses who commit epic fails when doing Facebook Marketing. It’s because you don’t know any better, right?.

Check yourself against these 10 things to avoid.. if you find your business committing one of these fails, you will now quickly be able to adjust your strategy for the better.

Here we go, our top 10 Facebook Marketing Strategies to Avoid in 2014:

10. Buying Facebook Likes

Before we proceed with the others, let’s get this big elephant out of the way. NEVER buy Facebook likes. Not only are you breaking the terms in Facebook, you’re also only fooling yourself by looking at a great number of fans who aren’t nearly interested in your brand. I like to call this ego marketing.

Remember, quality over quantity. You need followers who believe in your brand, who will share and comment on your content because they can relate; and not a huge follower count filled with ghosts accounts. It’s highly unlikely that you’ll generate a sale from your Facebook network if you pay for likes.

9. Using A Personal Profile for Business

Facebook profiles were created with the idea of “family & friends” in mind, not sales updates. You do not want to mix your selfies with your business-related posts, that would be wrong on so many levels. For the latter, what you need is a Facebook page to support you.

8. Incomplete Page Information

When you create your page, you are asked to fill in important fields. Some businesses prefer to do this later, but they forget about it entirely!

Having complete page information is very important because it makes sure you look like a professional, competent business. It also gives potential new customers information about your businesses products, services and most importantly how they can buy from you. There are specific things that you can do within your information that will help to drive engagement and boost sales, we talk about this regularly in our Group Training.

7. Illegal Profile Photos

Included in the things you have to set-up when creating a Facebook page is your profile photo. This image represents your brand, thus; it must be unique and obtained legally.

If you have a shop, for example, do not just use any fashion-related image on the internet. Create a Facebook profile photo unique to your business – this may be your logo, or if you’re a soul trader this can also be a professional photo of you. By having a unique profile photo, your audience will recognise your posts in the future.

6. Plain Cover Images

If you joined our webinar, you should know the importance of cover photos in Facebook. It’s not just there to make your page “look pretty”, it is an opportunity to pitch and promote the latest news and offers for your business. And most importantly, did you know that your cover photo appears on the newsfeed of your new followers and their friends? So, if you only have an ordinary photo with no “call to action” text whatsoever, what impact would that bring you? None! So get to it peeps, go make your cover photo amazing NOW.

5. Not Using The Insights Tool

People want to be updated, that’s why they liked your page in the first place. But that doesn’t mean they need to see you on their newsfeed every 30 minutes. This is why the insights tool in Facebook is a great help you market better. Through this tool, you will know when he best time to post for your business based on when your audience is online. Usually, best times are on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and weekends; but that would still depend on who your audience is. For optimum results in achieving great engagement, use your insights tool!

4. Boring Content & The Over Sell

Not only is it important to know WHEN to post, it’s also vital to know WHAT to post. Facebook pages who post mostly boring stuff or only sales stuff (ME content) are most likely to lose fans. You need to spice things up to keep your fans interested.

Do a game within your page or post some trivia. It doesn’t have to be unrelated, it only needs to be interesting.

3. No Call to Action

The purpose of having a business page is to drive more people to your site to make a sale – we must never forget “the purpose”. Oftentimes, other small businesses forget that the purpose of having a page is to support the main site and drive conversions.

To make sure your Facebook pages is a great source of traffic for your site, use call to action words on your posts.

Example caption with call to action text: These cakes are so delicious; everyone wants a piece. Good thing, we have enough for everybody on our website. VISIT US and see what we have in store for you! [Link here]

2. Handling Negative Feedback Negatively

The saddest story for a digital marketer is to lose loyal customers because they were handled poorly during a time they needed help the most. When your customers are upset, that’s because they feel disrupted. These can be solved in a polite manner, not in a way they would surely curse you for the rest of their lives! Most importantly, take the disturbed user’s conversation off the Facebook page and let them know you’ll send them a private message to help smooth things over. You don’t want everyone to see your dirty laundry.

1. No Marketing Strategy

The dumbest marketing strategy is probably having no strategy at all, der. So if you just post anything, anytime and just wait for something to happen, you’ve got a problem… here is some news: nothing good will ever happen. You cannot rely on lucky guesses for your business. This is not something you can undo, thus, it must be studied and planned out perfectly. This is why at Milk our soul purpose is to help you grow your business using hard data… No more guesswork!

So tell us, are you guilty of a sloppy Facebook strategy? Comment below and let us know if this has helped you, if you’re good and following our other Facebook articles, share this with someone who needs it! There’s a few of you out there!