It’s easy to make mistakes in digital marketing, especially if it’s not something you’ve done before or it’s just a small part of your job. There are some simple things you can do to avoid the biggest mistakes though, the first of which is to keep reading. I’ve picked out five of the biggest digital marketing mistakes so you can avoid them yourself. 

Doing too much at once
It might seem like you need a presence on every social channel as well as a website and an app, but it takes a lot of time, money and resource to manage all your digital output. The mistake people make is thinking you can manage multiple digital channels in the time it had been taking to manage just the one. Being spread thin without enough resource to manage them all results in the quality decreasing leading to less engagement and you’ve done all that work for nothing. Instead, focus on a few things and do them really well. Start with your website and build something simple but effective. You will then have a solid foundation you be built upon as your resources increase.

Not having a plan
If you set up social media accounts without any plan of how you will use them, it’s probably not going to end well. It’ll be like trying to reach a destination without a map. There are a lot of things you need to consider in a plan that will help determine your success. What type of people are you trying to reach? What tone of voice will you have? How and when will you respond to people? How will you talk about your organisation? How will it be branded? How are you going to engage people in conversation? What content will you post? All these questions and others need answering. Don’t forget, demographics and channels evolve over time and therefore so should your strategy. Update it every now and again to ensure it’s still relevant.

Making social media an afterthought
This is a mistake I see again and again. An organisation posts something important to their website and only remembers to share it via their social media channels hours or sometimes days later. Or, they just ‘chuck’ something up that hasn’t been adapted for social media in any way. A lack of thought or strategy leads to poor engagement. Social media shouldn’t be something you remember to do at a later date, it should be central to your wider communications plan. Consider it earlier in the process, adapt it for the channel and audience you are speaking to and you’ll find it will be much better received.

Not knowing your digital audience
Who are the people engaging with your content? How often do you look at the analytics for your website and social media channels? The metrics provided are telling you some really important things about your audience including their age, gender, what time of day they are online and more. Even just having a regular scroll through your follower list will tell you a lot about your audience. It’s this information that should be informing a lot of your strategy as well as the content and structure of your website. By writing specifically for your audience, you will increase the possibility of them engaging with you. It’s also important to know more about the audiences you aren’t reaching so you can find ways to change that.

Jumping on every digital trend
New social media networks, memes and trends pop up almost every week. Whilst it’s good to know what’s going on in the world of digital and social, jumping on every new trend might not be the best idea. You won’t be sure how long the popularity of these new sites will last and it will be an extra strain on resources that you might not be prepared for. They might also not be the right fit for your organisation and do more damage that good. Instead, do your research, understand the new trends and take the time to figure out which ones are right for your business to engage with.

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