B2B Social Media Marketing Mistakes: 15 Common SMM mistakes to avoid

| Pia Bogush Last updated 20 May, 2022

Have you tried B2B social media marketing but struggled to get results? You might have posted good content and used the relevant hashtags but didn’t get any leads or sales.

People are not interested in your posts, and the analytics are also not showing promising results. If it’s the case, something is wrong with your B2B social media marketing. Here we’ll share 15 common mistakes to avoid.

Without wasting any time, let’s discuss the mistakes and their solutions.

Using Stock Photos

When you hire marketers, they use stock photos most of the time. But unfortunately, these photos are impersonal, and your audience can quickly lose interest in your brand. Just imagine, if you and your competitors are using the same images, you’ll lose your credibility immediately.

If your budget allows, hire a graphic designer. Otherwise, free tools like Canva and Photoshop can be used to customize your photos.

There is no issue with using stock photos if you’re running a time-sensitive campaign or have a tight budget. But using stock photos without editing isn’t widely recommended.

Boring Content

It’s another common B2B social media marketing mistake. Companies try to build their authority, but in doing so, they post boring content, which hurts them in the long run. Whether humorous or lively, use your personality to gain the audience’s attention.

Your content can be authoritative and funny but ensure that it reflects your brand voice. We have observed that when companies post engaging content, the audience turns their notifications on to see what you have posted.

B2B and B2C are different business models, and in B2B, it’s not easy to create hype about your products and services on social media. So, you need experts to help you get leads. Many companies prefer hiring trained social media managers, but unfortunately, they fail to deliver results.

Do you know, what is the reason for it? Social media manager and social media marketer are two different jobs. Therefore, you need to hire social media marketers to get the desired results. They know how to develop strategies for getting results.

The best option is to hire a social media marketing agency because they can help you get leads on a limited budget. You can also hire a freelancer, but ensure prior experience and work proof.

Targeting the Wrong Metrics

We can measure the effectiveness of our social media campaigns by checking the metrics. The first thing you need to do is to set clear goals. For example, whether you want to get sales or increase brand awareness?

After that, check metrics to see whether they match with your goals or not? For example, if you aim to get sales, focus on conversions and referrals. On the other hand, if your campaign increases brand awareness, you need to focus on impressions and reach.

A good way to assess the effectiveness of a campaign is to look at more than one metric. For example, your post has got likes but no comments; it means it doesn’t perform well. Likewise, there can be issues in the caption. So, ensure that you refine and create an eye-catchy caption for your next campaign.

Buying Fake Accounts

Another mistake that most brands make is purchasing established social media accounts and fake followers. If someone reports your account, it can be closed. It looks good to buy established accounts because it leaves a good impression on customers’ minds. But because most followers are not genuine, you’ll not get the desired sales and results.

The best practice is to build your social media accounts from scratch, and you can follow these two practices for it.

If you have a site and keywords are ranking on Google, the best practice is to link your social media accounts to get followers
Find an influencer who has a close connection with your target audience to expand your reach

In this way, you’ll get real followers, and there will be no chance that your account will be closed. It can be daunting to grow your social media accounts from scratch, but once it’s established, you’ll see the difference in sales.

Most people want to get results, but they don’t want to leave their comfort zone. You can never unlock your marketing potential unless you’re committed to double your sales or goals. It will require extra investment, but the return on investment will make it a worthy approach.

If one strategy doesn’t work for you, experiment with another one. For example, the best way to expand your reach and increase audience engagement is to run contests.

Replicate Other Brand’s Strategies

Unfortunately, everyone wants quick results, and for this, they use shortcuts. These shortcuts may provide a short-term advantage, but they’re not suitable for the long term. It’s good to use new strategies, but don’t forget their cons. By doing so, you get comfortable and ignore the methods that still work.

Keep evaluating your strategies if you’re not getting sales or engagement. The best way is to analyze the best-performing competitors and check their strategy. You don’t have to copy their approach, but you can change your existing strategy.

Typos and Broken Links

You don’t need to provide reasons to your target audience to skip your posts. For example, if your landing pages and links are not working or there are typing issues in your content, there is a difference between your caption and content on the landing page. All these issues can distract your customer, and they’ll never get back to your posts.

Remember to:

Ensure that you communicate the right message
Ensure all the links are working and they don’t redirect users
The caption of your ad and landing page should be the same
Proofread your post before posting to avoid typos

Overlooking your Content Quality

You’re creating social media posts regularly, but your posts are not getting engagement. It means something is wrong. You need to publish high-quality posts and content regularly to increase engagement.

There is no ideal content length, so if it’s not working well for you, analyze your competitor’s posts. Then, check the below-given stats so that you can create posts accordingly in the future.

On Facebook, posts with around 50 characters get more engagement. Therefore, when creating a Facebook post, the character length should be approximately 50-80
On Twitter, the character length for a single tweet is 289 characters. But people only scan tweets. Therefore the character length should be between 70 and 100
On LinkedIn, you can use long posts. But the first 140 characters are crucial, so ensure that you grab the reader’s attention in those characters. If the start isn’t engaging, they’ll not click on read more

Restricting to One Platform

Social media is a crucial marketing tool. It’s sensible to start with one social media platform and use creative ways for marketing your brand. But when your brand is only limited to one platform, it reduces your chances of getting new customers.

People use social media platforms to research products, but you can’t say that they only use Facebook for it. So, you’ll have to test different platforms.

Don’t rely on just Facebook; the best approach is to run your ad campaign on Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn to get new customers.

Don’t follow the wave or trend. It takes time to master new software, and it can be heartbreaking when you don’t get results using social media management software.

Most software has the same functionality, but their prices are different because of their offerings.

Trusting Trends Blindly

Social media trends have a significant impact on B2B operations. Nowadays, most B2B companies are shifting towards chatbots to cut operational costs. Chatbots can start the conversation and convert visitors to customers.

It would help if you kept an eye on trends, but trusting them blindly isn’t good. There are different ways for identifying trends, such as:

If your audience is shifting to Instagram and TikTok, but you’re sticking to Facebook, you will not get leads
Check what technology your competitors are adopting
Testing the content your audiences like, they might be interested in videos, but you’re sharing images and vice versa
When you follow trends, it reduces your marketing cost

Mixing Different Tones

A consistent tone and voice help your audience understand what to expect from you. However, you can’t maintain the same manner on all the platforms.

For example, you can’t expect to get the same results by copy-pasting the same post on Instagram and Facebook. Therefore, it’s essential to communicate the same message in different ways according to the platform.

Too Much Focus on Sales

Undoubtedly, social media platforms are crucial for marketing your business but being too “salesy” can bore your audience.

Follow the 80-20 rule and ensure that you share 80% informational content and 20% promotional. You can convert a visitor into a customer by providing the right content.

For example, if you want your visitors to buy automation products, you first need to educate them about its benefits.

It will help you get more sales instead of directly running the promotion for products. Keep your audience engaged by posting funny content occasionally. If you don’t know how to maintain a balance between value and advertising, you can’t be a successful social media marketer.

Not Asking for the Feedback

If you’re communicating with your customers to get their feedback, how can you say that new products will please them? Unfortunately, asking for feedback looks tedious and time-consuming; therefore, many marketers avoid that.

The best way to gauge your brand’s effectiveness is to get feedback from customers. There are many benefits of getting customer feedback, such as:

Customers feel special, and it increases the brand loyalty
Give you insights into what your audience wants so that you can get new leads
Genuine feedback can help you improve your products and services if there are any shortcomings

There are many ways for getting feedback, such as surveys, one-on-one engagement, and social listening.

Final Words

When people fail to get leads, they often ask for B2B social media marketing tips, but unfortunately, they continue to make these 15 mistakes.

By avoiding these mistakes, you are likely to see significant improvement in your metrics.