5 biggest social media marketing mistakes on Facebook

Facebook has now become one of the most accurate and effective digital marketing channels available to businesses and individuals with roughly 2.3 billion active users and state of the art algorithms in place keeping tabs on behavioral patterns, interests, and intent, it really does provide you with the ultimate opportunity to get your ads directly In front of the right customers.

With such a large amount of targeting options and at times what many people find a tricky user interface, many people go astray when using Facebook for advertising.

To avoid making mistakes that cost you money and to be most effective in your efforts we have compiled 5 things to avoid.

• Targeting too Broad Of An Audience

Probably the biggest mistake people make is targeting too large of an audience size with the hope of hitting a potential lead, which is a quick way to burn your budget with minimal effectiveness.

You shouldn’t base your advertising on guesswork take some time to ask yourself who your ideal customer is? Are there interests or behaviors that your past clients have had?

This is where the beauty of Facebook Ads over page boosts comes into play allowing you to break down who you want to reach.

• Location/Demographic/Interests/Behaviors

So before you run your next Ad take the time beforehand to really analyze your target market and zone in on a smaller quality base for more effective overall engagement.

• Forgetting to use Facebook Pixel

Tracking is one of the keys to digital marketing, A Facebook pixel is the ideal way to be able to track the interaction from the people engaging with your ad and landing onto your Website, you can then use the Facebook pixel data.

• Retarget your website traffic directly with your ads or creating a custom lookalike audience of which Facebook compiles of people that are similar to the ones that have landed on your site.
• Optimise your Ads for eCommerce conversions
• Track all the conversions made on your site and use the information to further add targeting options.
• Hard selling

A mistake we see too often is people trying to use Facebook ads to sell a product to a cold audience straight of the bat, a good rule to remember with any social advertising is to give before you ask.

Create an intermediate step before asking for a lead or conversion where you can provide your potential customer with something of value before asking for an immediate conversion, Facebook algorithms work of a Know, Like, trust system which you may know as Awareness, Engagement, and Conversion these are the key stages you want to aim to bring your audience through.

• Ignoring the Importance of Your Image.

Many people are not aware that 70%-90% of ad success and performance are directly correlated to the images that are presented to your audience.

Even though Facebook has so many different ad formats most have the option to include 1 image, you can ask yourself these 4 questions before choosing or creating one.

• Is it visually pleasing with limited text?
• Is it relevant to your ad and content?
• Does it include an enticing offer?
• Does it portray value?

Great free service in Canva offers users the tools to create Facebook posts and ads with a large library of free and paid images.

• Poor Headlines

Many digital marketers try to implement either clever and witty headlines or sales jargon which isn’t necessarily bad but you are far better at creating your headline in a way that explains how your audience will benefit from your product or service, what’s in it for them? What solutions do you offer to their problem?

When it comes to the headline you want to keep it as short as possible so if you can portray the tips above in 40 characters or fewer statistics show you can achieve 86% more engagement.

• Avoiding these 5 key mistakes really comes down to taking the time to plan your ads, utilise the free tools and information out there to help you improve your ad creatives and manage the data you collect from your audience and you will be on your way to Facebook advertising success.