12 Ways Your Social Media Outreach Is Lacking

No matter how well-put-together your virtual event may be, if it can’t reach the right people and serve the intended purpose, all your efforts and planning are going down the drain. 

A majority of budding entrepreneurs and established enterprises are leveraging social media to get to the heart of their target groups. Social media has emerged as a powerful marketing tool that holds the potential to reach millions of prospects in a cost-effective manner. If you are not employing social media to promote your events or further your marketing efforts, you’re missing out on a major opportunity.

One factor that sets social media outreach apart from other marketing tools is accessibility. Whether you are an established business with a great marketing budget or a small business without much to spare, you can achieve impressive results with social media outreach.

If you are already down this road but are not able to reap desired results, chances are your current social media outreach strategy is lacking in some ways. Take a look at some common mistakes that are restricting the potential of your social media outreach. 

1. Not Having a Strategy At All

The world of social media can be confusing, especially when you’re new to it. It is constantly evolving, and you need to keep up. Take LinkedIn for example. Rather than posting without any planning, it’s crucial to have a well-thought-out outreach strategy in place. And using LinkedIn automation tools wherever possible will help you cut your time and labor in half.

Like any other marketing strategy, you need to define your goals, research the target audience, determine key metrics and continue finding ways to improve. 

2. Not Knowing Your Target Audience

You’re setting yourself up for failure if you don’t know your target audience and what these people want. Even if you are hosting a groundbreaking virtual event, the wrong audience isn’t going to help you.

Avoid making assumptions and do your research to determine your target people. Taking time to analyze your audience’s demographic is crucial to design an effective social media strategy and create relevant content.

3. Picking Wrong Platforms

There is an abundance of social media platforms. Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn, Snapchat, Pinterest, and Youtube are just a few popular examples. 

Creating a presence on social media is a time-consuming process. Therefore, signing up for every social media out there is a waste of your time and resources. Instead, focus on platforms that are relevant to your brand and are most used by your target audience. 

4. Using the Same Strategy on All Platforms

If you are thinking of using the same content across all your social media platforms, think again. 

Every social media platform functions differently. The algorithm, audience, and content format are poles apart. A piece of content that does well on LinkedIn is probably not going to reap the same success on Instagram. This is something that you need to keep in mind while creating your content strategy for social media.

5. Inconsistent Content

Time moves faster in the social media world. If you are not consistently engaging with your audience, they will start paying attention to other brands. 

How can you keep up with a regular posting schedule? Developing a content calendar is a must for your social media strategy. It will help you visualize your long-term strategy as well as stay organized. Content calendars also prove to be useful when you’re managing multiple social media platforms. 

6. Keeping It Too Professional

People usually go on social media to connect and socialize with others. If you take an overly professional and stiff approach, your followers won’t be able to relate to your brand.

Give your social media strategy a human touch by taking a causal and personal approach. Moreover, empathy should be an inherent part of your content creation process. It can help you connect with your audience on a deeper level and gain their trust.

7. Failing to Engage with Followers

Whether followers are tagging your brand or commenting on your posts, make sure you are responding to their interest. Engaging with followers will help them feel appreciated and encourage participation.

8. Promotional Approach

First and foremost, social media is for socializing. Using social media for solely promoting your event isn’t going to bode well for your brand in the long run. Your follower will lose interest and may even choose to unfollow your account. 

Your social media strategy should be a good balance of promotional, informative, and entertaining content. Rather than just focusing on your virtual event, create content that offers value to your audience. 

9. Ignoring Negative Feedback

No brand is completely immune from negative feedback. If you are regularly posting on social media, be prepared to face major or minor backlash. Whether it was or wasn’t your fault, staying silent on the subject won’t do you any good. And deleting negative comments or blocking users criticizing your brand isn’t a good move either. 

Ideally, you and your team should carefully look into the situation and try to understand why people are upset. Addressing the issue is better for your brand rather than ignoring negative publicity and hoping it will go away. 

10. Buying Followers

Many brands new to social media are hyper-focused on increasing their number of followers and may even consider buying followers. But is it worth it? Absolutely not!

There is no way to ascertain that these followers are genuine and will increase engagement for your brand. And such unethical practices can get your account banned. You should strictly implement practices to organically increase your following. 

11. Not Using Paid Tools

When you are just starting out on social media, you can market on various platforms without spending a penny. But there is only so much you can achieve with free social media tools. 

Using paid ads and sponsored content, you can attract new users and further the reach of your social media campaigns. 

12. Not Measuring Results

You cannot shoot in the dark by posting content and hoping it delivers results. Measuring ad campaigns, engagement, impressions and other metrics is imperative to determine the effectiveness of your social media strategy. Most social media platforms give you access to analytics, look into it and use it to improve campaigns. 

The Bottom Line

It’s important to understand that there is no standardized strategy that will work for every event promotion on social media. You need to determine your unique goals and requirements and accordingly adopt practices. 

Just like any other marketing strategy, social media outreach should be actively monitored and tracked. Don’t let a few mistakes discourage you from making the most of social media for your virtual events.