Unsatisfactory customer experience.

Negative experiences often tap into our emotions more strongly than positive, which is why you are more likely to see negative feedback online than you will receive positive feedback—even if you have amazing customer service. That’s why it’s important to be consistently great with your service at every contact point. If your brand is user-friendly (and it should be!) then deliver on that promise! Remember, your social media interactions are public so how you react to both negative and positive feedback will create a permanent impression about how your company is run. And take away this tidbit from Amazon CEO, Jeff Bezos—“If you make customers unhappy in the physical world, they might each tell six friends. If you make customers unhappy on the Internet, they can each tell 6,000 friends.”

Fear of social media automation.

If you work for a marketing agency, chances are good that you juggle multiple social media accounts for multiple companies each day. If you’re a successful marketing agency and you’re not taking advantage of automated posting then you’re likely overwhelmed by the amount of upkeep it takes to maintain your clients accounts. Tools like Raven and Hootsuite take a lot of the time commitment away by allowing you to schedule out your social media accounts ahead of time. We do advise regularly checking all of the social media accounts you manage, but they are reliable tools.

Overwhelming your reader.

SEO can be picky about which blog posts have better reach than others. Too short, and you won’t fall on the radar of search engines—but too long and you can overwhelm your readership. At minimum, a blog post should have 500 words of content; at maximum a blog post should be no more than 1,500 words. We recommend hitting between 500-1000 on average. The average adult can read at a speed of 300 words per minute. Aim to take up no more than 3-4 minutes of your readers attention, or they will move on from your website in search of content that is easier to understand. Test out word lengths and see what creates a response to your audience so that you can tailor the length of your content to your readership.

Ignoring the “marketing” part of “content marketing”.

Creating content is only half the job; you also have to be able to market it. To get results, reach out to your audience—especially social media influencers, or expand your brand by guest authoring another website. Interlinking is also a big part of driving results—syndicate your content to other websites or internally, share, tweet; ask for shares and tweets and return the favor when prompted. Marketing is a proactive, not passive industry.

Become a magnet, not a bullhorn.

Work smarter, not harder. Generating new leaders and customers takes a lot more effort than keeping an existing one. Keep your existing customers happy and likely to return by establishing a solid brand identity that is easily recognizable by image. If your brand identity is solid, it will attract prospects and convince them to come back as loyal returnees. The key to this is managing your relationship with your audience using social media to encourage your readership to engage with the brand. Relationships are powerful in marketing.