You may consider yourself something of a social media expert. After all, you tweet, post, follow, and like on your personal social media accounts all day long. To be successful at social marketing, however, it takes a whole different kind of expertise, and point of sale (POS) or payments companies can doom their campaigns with some common social media marketing mistakes.

Here are three ways you can pretty much guarantee your social marketing efforts will be wasted:

1. Not Knowing Your Target Audience

Who buys your POS or payments solutions?  Do you want to reach the channel or end users? The way you capture the attention of merchants is not the same way as how you reach VARs or ISOs. For example merchants may be interested in a new mobile wallet solution that consumers are beginning to use. Resellers would be more interested in how they can make money selling the technology to support it. Have a clear picture of who you are talking to with each post on social media.  

Also understand the social media habits of your target audience. On which social media sites are you most likely to find them, and do they use the site to network or just to keep up with news? Be where your prospects are and give them what they’re looking for.   

1. Not Monitoring Your Page

If you are serious about not making social media marketing mistakes, you must monitor your social media pages. Assign this job to someone who can make sure your POS or payments company’s pages are current, that posts scheduled through a third-party site like Hootsuite were posted and appeared at the right time, and that your sites aren’t filled with spam. You also need to ensure that your company responds to comments and other types of engagement promptly and courteously (even if they are negative).

It might seem like monitoring social media pages is a chore that’s okay to push back — especially when there are so many other demands on your time — but remember that people use social media in their purchasing decisions. They are checking to see if you are a legitimate company and, if user-generated content (UGC) is available, to learn what other people think of you. Don’t let them find a site where your last post is six-months old and a complaint was posted but never addressed.  

1. Over-posting or Under-Posting

Yes, it’s a catch-22. The more often you post, the more likely people will see your social marketing activity. However, if you post too much, people could remove you from their lists because you are flooding their feeds. The way to avoid either side of this social-media-marketing-mistake spectrum, is to live in the middle. It will probably take some trial and error, but you will be able to determine how much to post on each platform so that prospects recognize that you are an active part of that community, yet not so much that you are annoying anyone.

Moving forward with a campaign when you aren’t paying attention to these basic principles is a guaranteed waste of time. Make sure you aren’t guilty of these social media marketing mistakes, and then get down to the business of promoting great content, establishing yourself as an industry expert, driving prospects back to your website, and collecting leads.  

If you need some assistance making social media marketing work for your company, contact The SkyRocket Group.