For direct-to-consumer (DTC) businesses, having a social media presence is a virtual necessity (pun intended). A DTC’s success hinges on brand enthusiasm, and today there’s no better way to build it than on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and several other platforms.
For DTC start-ups, creating a sustainable social media marketing campaign requires a great deal of planning — this is something we’ve heard repeatedly from our many ecommerce packaging customers. Based on their feedback and our own experience on social media going back nearly 20 years, we would like to share these tips to help your start-up succeed on social media.
10 Common Social Media Mistakes DTCs Must Avoid
- Being on too many platforms. Better to start on one or two platforms until you get a very good feel for how much time you’ll have to spend building your community. If you’re spread too thin, you’ll come off as being unexcited about your own brand.
- 2. Picking the wrong platform. Find out where on social media your target customers do the most talking about your products. That’s the place to start.
- Not responding quickly and energetically. You need to monitor your social media accounts continually, so that when customers ask questions or mention your brand, you can jump into the conversation and make a favorable impression on that individual and your audience as a whole. Don’t underestimate the time it will take to do this properly.
- Picking the wrong person to monitor your social media accounts. With #3 in mind, make sure whoever you pick for monitoring duties is a great communicator.
- Being inwardly focused. On social media, talk about your customers — how they use your products/services, solutions and benefits you offer, etc. It’s OK to give people a behind-the-scenes look at our business, but that should not be the main story.
- Not sharing useful information. Share informative, readable, content about your industry to educate your customers — whether the content is yours or somebody else’s. If all you do is share your own sales and marketing propaganda content, you’ll be perceived as self-serving (see #5).
- Not sharing visual content. Text alone is boring — you’ll never cut through the clutter without photos, videos, and images. Add relevant, engaging visual elements to your social media posts whenever possible.
- Not marketing your social media presence. Unmissable links to/symbols of your social media accounts should be everywhere: your website, email signatures, letterhead, shipping boxes (that’s where we come in), literature (print and PDF), business cards, etc., etc., etc.
- Not proactively building your audience. You’ve got to make the first move and follow people you think will be interested in your products. Hope they join you community. This brick-by-brick community building takes time. You have to do research to identify the right candidates, reach out to them in an appropriate way, and continually refine the profile of people most likely to connect with you.
- Not moving on. It takes 6-12 months to build an audience on any social media platform, so don’t quit too soon. However, if after that much time you’re getting nowhere, try another platform. Just because you’ve struck out once does not mean you’ve lost the game!
Let’s Talk!
As we touched on, your ecommerce packaging should play a part in your DTC social media marketing campaign, especially if you’re starting up or launching a new product. We have strong expertise in this area. Please call us at 630-551-1700 or contact us through the website to start the conversation.
Related Posts:
https://www.salazarpackaging.com/creative-dtc-packaging-design-now-can-create-huge-savings-later/
https://www.salazarpackaging.com/a-guide-to-internet-marketing-acronyms/
https://www.salazarpackaging.com/best-marketing-options-for-b2b-and-b2c/