OKAY! You are a social media superstar! Your posts are handcrafted, beautifully presented, and getting a lot of clicks, shares, and likes! You check your analytics and find a massive number of social media traffic!
Your site is getting popular day by day, and you find your content is ranking! But, all the traffic you are sourcing from the social network, are they CONVERTING?
Your 24/7 hard work on social media is not only to get likes and shares or social signals. The ultimate goal is to get your social media traffic into your conversion funnel. Is that HAPPENING?
If NOT, WHY?
In this post, I have explained 15 core mistakes you must be making that’s STOPPING your social media traffic to enter into your CONVERSION FUNNEL! Here it is-
15 terrible mistakes damaging your social media traffic to convert!
1: Using The Wrong Social Media Marketing Platform
t is a general mistake businesses make in their SMM effort. The social media traffic is of no good if it’s not coming from the right source.
For example, you need business to visit your website but getting general users or consumers instead! It won’t help you to get a good conversion.
How this happens: You think of quantity over quality! You keep creating accounts on social networks blindly and don’t assess the user base background!
For example, when your offer is for business, the best social networks are Twitter and LinkedIn. You will get targeted audience and specific people who will have more potential to convert than visitors from Facebook, Stumble upon, and so on!
Likewise, if you are a B2C warrior Facebook, Stumble upon, Scoop it, Reddit will be the best place to acquire convertible social media traffic.
How to avoid it: First, assess the user base of a particular social network before engagement. You will find these data on Google if you search by “social network sites review.” Select the network that fits your customer type and then start your campaign. Do not keep creating accounts in unnecessary social networks. It will increase your bounce rate. Remember, traffic is of no good if it’s not converting.
2: Acquiring Wrong Traffic From Social Media Platforms
It is almost a twin of the first point, “using the wrong platform”! But there are some differences which I will explain here.
How this happens: Wrong social media traffic often comes in for a couple of reasons.
- You select a rich keyword but do not fit your niche
- You promoted your content in wrong places
- Your contents message was hitting different people than you expected, and so on.
For example, you are a growth hacking company which offers brilliant tools to optimize conversion rate. But your traffic base is users who are “tech enthusiastic” but not in the industry!
A tech enthusiastic would look for tech updates and will discuss it. But the person won’t use your product! You might have created links in places where these people are more engaged.
You might have also asked your FB connections or share content on FB and LinkedIn groups from where you are getting the traffic.
But will they buy your product? May be or may not be! The chances are small.
How to avoid it: You need to analyse a couple of factors. Such as-
- Keywords search volume by category of users (Take help from Google keyword Planner, WordStream and Long Tail Pro)
- Content type should target audience only suits your niche (Take help from Google trends, Buzzsumo and Alltop)
- Selecting the right platform to share your content (Take help from Google, Qoura and Yahoo to find out the perfect network)
- Creating titles that will draw attention from your targeted users (Take help from CoSchedule title creator and HubSpot blog topic generator)
You can make a checklist of it and proceed accordingly. It cannot assure you that your traffic will be bang on, but can reduce the portion of unnecessary traffic and bounce rate significantly.
3: Sending Traffic To The Wrong Place From Social Media
Even after ensuring the “right social media traffic source” and “right social media traffic,” yet your conversion can be disappointing if you are not sending that traffic to the right place!
How this happens: You are showing the same message to all the users coming from social networks to your link. There is no variation or difference! For example, you are getting massive traffic from LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook.
But the users on each of these networks may have a different view, requirement, and interest! They clicked on your link, but that doesn’t mean they will convert unless your page fulfills their needs.
So if all of the visitors land in the same content which delivers the same message, the majority of them will bounce.
How to avoid it: Different landing pages would be a great idea to handle this. Your visitors from various social networks should see the same content but in a different way that suits their requirements.
You can create different versions of your page that will deliver personalised messages to the users coming from a specific source. It impacts your conversion enormously.
Remember, on the social network; every user is the king! You will have to accommodate to their needs unless you are someone like Apple or Samsung!
4: Engaging With The Wrong Audience On Social Networks
It is done by connecting with the “wrong category” of people. A social network is a virtual world for the real world! Billions are using it, and everyone CAN NOT be your right customer!
How it happens: You have pages, groups, and profiles by which you connect with users to promote your business. But what if a business software selling page invites users who are college students, doctors, and teachers? Will it help you to increase engagement, social signals, and shares?
The answer is NO.
It’s not because your approach is wrong. It’s because your selection is incorrect, and you are sourcing the irrelevant social media traffic.
How to avoid it: There are a couple of simple steps you can take to avoid it! Such as defining your targeted market, demography analysis, and physiographic analysis!
Sounds a bit tough? It is effortless. All you got to do is spend some time and keep track of your work. As per the marketing land, these strategies are ultimate enough to sort your targeted audience.
5: Lazy Social Media Activity
Not entertaining the audience is a big-time example of this mistake! The days of TV and movie entertainment are long gone! Social media ENTERTAINMENT is the main thing people look up to nowadays.
How it happens: Let me give you some examples here-
There is nothing wrong with this tweet. But a DISASTER that caused trauma should not be a base of promoting your services. It is not entertaining or humorous. It happens when you prefer NEED over LIKE on social media.
Your audience won’t like hitting on their weaknesses. Instead, they will want you to make them feel strong and happy. That’s what makes engagement successful and your social media traffic to convert!
How to avoid it: In simple words, post content that will make people smile, interested, and inquisitor! Happiness is the key to success! Let me show you a great example here-
You won’t have discount offers always. But you can make sure your posts are helping the audience more than selling to them. Help creates TRUST and trust creates BUSINESS 🙂
6: Making Posts Too Lengthy For The Audience
All big social network is full of competitors, and everyone is trying to do better in every moment. Every second you take to express your message to your audience is worth of money! So making your post unnecessarily lengthy can cause your social media traffic to lose their interest to convert,
How it happens: It mainly happens when you overuse VERBS and ADJECTIVES! Now, these two works excellent to make content exciting, but stuffing them in a post will cause the opposite result. Also, making a post’s length of more than 100 characters jeopardizes the engagement ratio.
How to avoid it: A research data published by Jeff Bullas on his blog showed posts having a length of 80 characters, or less has 66% higher engagement. So it’s always wise to cut it short on social media with the right message.
#7: Not Focusing On The Right Content On Social Media
Your audience on social media won’t like everything you share. If you check your analytics, you will find your social media traffic is landing on a PARTICULAR type of CONTENT frequently! You have to identify it and focus on that!
How it happens: Lack of ANALYSIS is one of the main reasons for which this mistake takes place. You don’t check what TYPE of content are TRIGGERING and what are NOT! It makes the campaign confusing, and you keep posting materials blindly, which eventually does not get any clicks or engagement.
How to avoid it: Its very simple. Go to your analytics and check data like the following image-
- Check what type of contents are being viewed more
- Number of visitors
- Page session and bounce rate
Depending on the data from this analysis, you can PLAN what TYPE of contents your audience is liking more! It helps you to keep up with your audience’s test and post the RIGHT contents.
#8: Not Making Contents Native ( Typos and others )
Your audience has a language, culture, sensibility, and style! If your contents are not reflecting that it’s not going to work. Dead simple!
How it happens: Have a look at this example here-
Well, this is one of those embarrassing and unwanted mistakes I could make. A TYPO! I shared my content on inbound org where Alex rightfully and thankfully pointed it out to me! It was embarrassing but also an eye-opener of how polished and Typo-free native language is significant in contents on social media.
How to avoid it: Read and write as much as possible! That’s the best way of getting rid of this mistake. You can use some tools like Grammarly and White Smoke, to rectify errors. Nevertheless, even if you can’t be 100% native, make sure your language is at least 100% posh! Your social media traffic will lose TRUST if this mistake happens, and you can forget CONVERSION!
#9: Not Posting On The Right Time
People are on the social network 24/7! But are they ACTIVE 24/7? NOPE!
That’s the GAP marketers often miss. In a day of 24 hours, when is the right time to post that gets you a convertible engagement? I will get to the answer, but first, note that posting content 24//7 is not a good idea!
Making your audience wait for a decent amount of time can be attractive to them 🙂 Your social media traffic does not have a consistent flow. You got to keep up with the right time to capture the maximum flow to your posts.
How it happens: Not analyzing the active hours of social networks is a big reason for which this happens. Users are active on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook at different hours. When you fail to track that, the timing of posts lands wrongly.
How to avoid it: As I said, analyzing the active hours are essential. As per Jeff Bullas, he said on one of his blog posts that posts on Facebook get a 20% more engagement if they are posted between 8 pm to 7 am! Furthermore, the HubSpot blog posted an info-graphic on post schedules on different social networks here!
#10: Not Posting On The Right Days
A post on social media at the right time, but on the RIGHT DAY is a waste! Users got a different schedule for each day, and thus, their navigation on social networks varies. If a post is not on the right day, it may not work for a brand even if all the other elements are perfect.
How it happens: I would say unconsciousness is the main reason. As a brand, you need to have an insight knowledge of social networks and how they work. There is analytics of almost all major social networks, but a lot of businesses even don’t know about it.
How to avoid it: Simply click on the following links-
For LinkedIn, you can check your analytics from your profile activity. Likewise, if you are on other networks, check if they got analytics, which is very likely to have. From this, you can see which days your audience is more active. If you post the contents on the right days, your social media traffic conversion should be higher.
#11: Breaking The Frequency Limit
People on social networks get bored quickly. Most of the people stay online by habit or need. Not by INTEREST! So if you continue posting stuff no matter how QUALITY they are, your audience may get bored quickly, and that will drive them away!
How it happens: Inexperience and not enough study would be the main reason. Business new to online marketing and SMM is likely to make this mistake more often.
How to avoid it: A little study can help to avoid this terrible mistake. A research data published by Jeff Bullas on his blog has shown that one or two posts in a day are likely to have more engagement than three or more posts in a day. Moreover, Buffer has published an info-graphic on frequency of posts on social networks, which has explained the right frequencies of posts brilliantly.
Image source: Buffer App-
#12: Not Selecting The Right Keyword
Keywords are magnate of your posts on social media. To draw enough convertible social media traffic, placing the right keyword along with your offer, is VITAL.
How it happens: Not understanding the meaning of the post causes this mistake. For example, your post is about a SPECIAL OFFER, which may end SOON. But you don’t mention “Limited” Now” “Ends” these words in your post title! Your audience won’t get to know about it and be lazy in their CLICKS!
How to avoid it: Just like on-page SEO, each post needs to be correctly optimized by trending keywords. You can find it by doing some research. If you are drawing traffic from youtube, you can get the keyword tool for youtube. If you are on Facebook, you can find keywords by doing an internal filtered search. Look at the image below-
If you are on twitter, you can find out the #tags on it and select the right tags that will fit your tweets. Make sure you align the relevant #tags, or else the clicks you will get won’t convert at all! You can have a more in-depth look at WordStream expert guide into keyword research for social sharing.
#13: Not Responding To The Audience On Social Media
Words generate trust. As much as you talk, the more you come close to your audience and the more they convert! But when the opposite happens, no matter how quality your posts are, how exclusive your offers are, and how prominent your brand is, your audience can always be skeptical.
How it happens: Well, you can’t always respond. You may have millions of messages, and you are working hard every day to respond to all queries. However, it’s not possible still to satisfy all! But this mistake takes place when you are so lazy that you can even type a “thank you” or “hi”! Moreover, to type a few words, you engage automated bots! I mean, it’s okay to use bots if you are not spamming, but COME ON! You can be HUMAN at least for a few minutes in a day!
You have to respect your audience. They do understand human and automated interaction. Moreover, if you are getting messages on Facebook, they can always check if you have seen their message or not. See the image below-
FollowUp Then is an excellent platform for email services, but yet, a little response would have made me feel better as an audience.
How to avoid it: Just try to get back to the message in a few words. You don’t have to write a novel, do you? Just stick to YES or NO and MAYBE sometimes! Just assures your audience that you value their time, which they took to inbox you! Here is an example-
KoMarketing guys did not send me a gift but just a few words. That’s all mattered as an audience to me:)
#14: Liking And Sharing Your Own Post
It is a dumb thing to do as a brand. You can do some gray hat stuff by engaging your group of people from different accounts to like or share your posts. But using your brand name is too lame.
How it happens: When you are starving for likes and rushing for no reason, this happens! Do not do it!
How to avoid it: Keep calm and wait! You can internally ask your co-workers, connections, and others in your reach to like and share. That will organically generate more engagement that is likely to convert.
#15: Including Multiple Links To Your Content
Your posts on social media should be specific and talk about ONE topic at a time. When you try to be aggressive in link-sharing on social media, both your conversion and CTR falls on their face.
How it happens: Again lack of proper study is one of the core reasons. When you put more than one link in a single post that confuses the visitors right at the beginning. When there is confusion even before a visitor clicks, the conversion factor gets jeopardized. Look at the example below-
Image source: wishpond
How to avoid it: Just be SINGULAR about your links. There is no need to rush when you are on social media. That’s the key to success!
My Thoughts:
Converting social media traffic is challenging. Referral traffic needs individual nurturing to put them in the conversion funnel. However, make sure you are also careful about different social media privacy and security risks at the same time. The steps explained above works typically to boost your conversion. Nevertheless, if you have other tips to share, please shoot them in the comment box.
