The Top 5 Mistakes in Social Media Marketing

Social media is changing how people interact with each other, and that impacts music retail. At The 2018 NAMM Show, Link Walls, vice president of digital marketing strategy for e-commerce giant ChannelAdvisor, shared the top five social media marketing mistakes to be avoided.

As a veteran of e-commerce, Walls identified several recent trends: retailers are spending more on social marketing every year, consumers are spending significant time on social media (an average of 50 minutes per day) and social media is influencing their purchases (a high percentage of Pinterest users bought products). According to Walls, music retailers will want to focus on where consumers are shopping through social media networks (eBay, Facebook, Amazon, Google Plus) and connect with them.

Here are Walls’ top five social media marketing mistakes. (Watch the video for the full session.)

1. Trying to do it all at once.
Don’t try to go all in across all social platforms. Walls suggested biting off a little at a time and trying one or two new ideas. Ask yourself where your audience is, what your goal is, and what resources and budget you are prepared to invest. Be realistic about which channel is appropriate for you, and get good at it. Put together a social media marketing roadmap for the year that breaks down how you’ll reach your goals.

2. Using the same message for everyone.
Don’t ignore the strengths and advantages of each platform, which is the ability to customize to your audience. Tailor your message to each platform’s audience. Identify the goal of your campaign, identify your audience, create the appropriate message and measure the effectiveness. Digital advertising lets you start small. Walls suggested starting with a small budget ($500) and testing to see if it works well. Your messaging should walk consumers through the process of what they need to do to interact and do business with you.

3. Not investing in creative and engaging content.
You need to stand out to consumers who are bombarded with images and information through social media. Wells emphasized that people are passionate about music and you can capitalize on being in an industry that has passion built in. When creating and posting content, ask yourself, “Would someone share this?” Be creative, use interesting images and deliver value to the person who’s reading it. Use storytelling through video (with or without sound) to tell the kind of stories you tell in your business. This can be the basis for creating interesting and engaging content that fits your audience.

4. Not thinking “mobile first.”
When you think about advertising on social platforms, think about optimizing your ads for mobile. Eighty-four percent of Facebook’s revenue is from mobile, and more than a billion users only access Facebook or Instagram from a mobile device. Walls shared mobile traffic trends that indicate e-commerce is increasingly all about mobile. Make mobile a priority and start there. Keep it short, and optimize for “snacking” (versus a meal) behavior. Make sure you’re overlaying text on videos and avoiding landscape video formats to optimize as much visual real estate as possible. The goal is to stand out to users scrolling through their feeds to stop and want to engage with you.

5. Measuring social media the same as other advertising channels.
Social media is different from channel to channel, so don’t think that you can get the same return in advertising dollars from one social platform to the next (e.g., Instagram versus Pinterest). Think about what the intent of the user is and how to measure that. A user may not be intent on purchasing but rather just be looking for something interesting. From an ROI perspective, you might be measuring your advertising effectiveness from other criteria than dollars, such as the number of impressions and reach. Walls shared a slide Understanding the Marketing Funnel and Where Social Fits—the widest part of the funnel at the top level being discovery, funneling down to consideration, evaluation and finally conversion at the bottom.