We’ve previously covered why visual content is important for your business’s social media channels but today we’re talking about the pitfalls we regularly see in content marketing and how to avoid them.
Here are five common content marketing mistakes to avoid:
1. Failure to create a content calendar
Okay, we know this seems obvious, but failure to plan is failure to launch. Having a content calendar should be part of your business/brand and marketing strategy because it’s the framework for the ongoing story you’re trying to tell your audience.
Reasons why you should have a monthly content calendar in place:
- Allows for advance planning
- Identify important dates (holidays, events and launches)
- Essential to maintaining consistency in your content
- Easier to review/ get approval if that’s part of your workflow
- Visual overview of the month ahead
- Provides a record of past, present and future content
- Time saver
- Coordinate assets needed in advance
Not having a calendar in place could result in you and your team scrambling to create content more times than you’d care for.
Here at Legendary, we use Google Drive and Asana to create our content calendars, which allows us to collaborate and review our work with team members and clients in real-time.
2. Using the same content on each channel
We know cross-posting across all your social media channels is tempting – it’s so convenient after all! But each social media channel operates differently, not to mention each one has a different demographic and audience.
Once you’re familiar with how each platform works, optimize your content for each channel. A caption that works on Facebook isn’t going to work on your Twitter account. Character count, formatting, hashtag use and URL use all vary depending on the platform.
Some posts will be suitable for multiple channels but may require small tweaks such as shortening or lengthening captions, taking away hashtags or using a video vs an image.
3. Lack of consistency
Inconsistent messaging and infrequent posting could lead to your audience feeling confused and frustrated with your business.
A lack of consistency in your content could be avoided if you have a solid content calendar in place – we can’t stress the importance of having this tool enough!
Take the time to review all your social media posts to ensure your content is consistent in voice, hashtags, keywords, images and call to actions.
4. Creating quantity over quality content
Creating enough content to post every day is really hard. It’s time-consuming, takes a lot of resources and can cost money. Scale back and instead post quality content 4 times a week.
Focus on what will keep your audience engaged and coming back for more. Ensure your contributions are valuable, informative and fun without doing a hard sell. Content marketing is NOT advertising.
5. Neglecting data for future strategies
One of the biggest mistakes your business can make is not taking the time to analyze your metrics!
If you take the time to review the performance of your previous social media efforts, you can learn which posts your audience engaged with and which ones they didn’t.
Use your data to strategize in creating your next content marketing campaign!
Summary
To have a successful content marketing campaign, avoid making all these mistakes. Be deliberate and strategic from planning to producing your content. Unsure about how to create a plan or strategy? Check out our blog on how to create a social media marketing plan!
