Most modern brands understand how crucial it is to use social media for customer interactions and brand promotion. Indeed, social media is at the center of many digital strategies, delivering results in terms of customer service, leads and sales. Nonetheless, there are plenty of social media mistakes and strategic errors that result in lost leads and missed opportunities.

Here are some of the most common social media marketing mistakes and why they can be costly in the long run.

You’re Not Paying Attention to Your Audience

Sure, you might be checking out your notifications, but that’s just a mere fraction of the dialogue surrounding your business, service, products, industry or competitors.

According to some research findings, a majority of people who discuss various brands don’t actually follow them on social media. As a result, it’s important to look beyond your own feeds so you can keep up with what people are saying about your brand and obtain insights to guide your strategy.

There are plenty of social media listening tools you can leverage to listen to more conversations that help you to broaden your spectrum. Paying more attention to these conversations is also one way to carry out some market research, track company health, reinforce brand values, gauge whether or not people are interested in new products, enhance customer satisfaction and highlight consumer demographics.

You Don’t Have A Clear Objective

Whether or not your turning in a profit, it’s critical to have a clear objective. This is especially crucial if your business is struggling. Setting meaningful objectives means noting all your planned achievements in the near as well as the distant future.

Setting clear objectives also applies to your social media strategy. In this day and age, you just can’t afford to post random posts with the hope of attracting a steady stream of shares, likes, and sales. You have to work harder to broaden your organic reach. Growing your audience and stimulating an interest in your products and services requires you to invest in advertising.

Social media advertising allows you to track engagements forensically, which is essential to set clear goals. You want your social media platform to have a real connection with the company as a whole. And that means connecting your social media output to wider business aims and metrics.

You’re Not Offering Real Value

It can be easy to get carried away with promoting your brand, forgetting that it’s also important to provide value. While most brands believe that social media can be used exclusively for building brand awareness, there’s nothing further from the truth. In fact, users go to social media platforms to interact and engage.

Social advertising comes with numerous benefits but it’s important to mix things up by posting other relevant, informational and shareworthy content so that you’re providing users with more value. Come up with content- blog posts, video, infographics – that delivers valuable information, resonates with your target audience and answers some of their questions. You want to create content that’s both engaging and enlightening.

Rather than gravitate towards direct sales messages, create content that evokes emotional reactions. Establish value by asking questions, starting then keeping the conversations flowing and you’ll likely benefit from an increased likelihood of conversions and an improved brand image.

Avoiding these common social media mistakes will go a long way in increasing your reach and improving your ROI. Overcoming these mistakes will also help you to capitalize on opportunities that your competitors may have passed up.