10 Facebook Marketing and Advertising Mistakes That Businesses Should Avoid 

It makes no sense to deny that Facebook is the most influential social network that has ever existed. Created in 2003, the platform has grown from a group of a few hundred users into a channel for communication, political movements, and marketing where nearly three billion people have accounts. Every third person uses this social network, and a business loses a large percentage of the target audience if it misuses promotion opportunities. Here are 10 mistakes to avoid in Facebook marketing and advertising. Mention’s Marketing Manager Mindset Report found that Facebook was the top used channel for social media marketing in 2022

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Facebook as a global source of information

According to Statista, with 2.9 billion active users monthly, Facebook tops the list of the world’s most popular social networks, surpassing YouTube (2.5 billion) and WhatsApp (2 billion). 

Facebook is used by 262 million Americans and Canadians, 427 million Europeans, and 1.28 billion people from the Asia-Pacific region. The main audience of the platform is men (18.4%) and women (12.6%) aged 25-34. People aged 18-24 and 35-44 are slightly less interested in this social platform (7.9-13.3%). The audience under 17 and over 45 is the smallest (2.4% to 5.8%).

98% of users access the network through mobile applications or a mobile site. In 2022, Facebook Messenger became the third most popular instant messaging platform.

The platform’s worldwide fame and diverse audience make Facebook an ideal place to attract and generate leads. 93% of marketers use this social media to promote their business. 21% of promotional professionals consider Facebook to be the social network with the highest ROI (its CTR is in the range of $1.4-3.4).

To make Facebook promotion efficient, it is important to build the right marketing and advertising strategy and not make the top 10 marketing mistakes.

Facebook marketing mistakes

It takes a couple of minutes to launch a business page on Facebook: you need to upload a cover, post a few entries, and invite friends to “like” your post. But this is only a small share of the work. To properly promote a brand, you need to create a community of people around it and skillfully maintain a dialogue with them. For that, try to avoid the following mistakes:

Mistake 1. Overabundance of advertising posts

Overloading a company’s page with promotional articles is like public spamming. Intrusive content scares people away. Instead of increasing sales, a business gets the opposite effect: the target audience may abandon it. Users need to be interested and involved in the life of the company so that they follow the product with pleasure and stay loyal to the brand.

In your marketing strategy, you should adhere to the golden 80/20 rule of social networks. This means that 80% of posts should offer useful and entertaining content, and 20% are about brand advertising. And while many marketers consider indirect content to be promotional as it is part of the promotion strategy, you need to distinguish between pushing a purchase from building relationships with the target audience. You can report sales, discounts, and promotional codes without overloading subscribers with information. But don’t forget about the posts that create a brand image and attract new followers.

Mistake 2. Impersonal posts

Many people use Facebook to connect with their friends and family. Therefore, publishing business-related impersonal posts will not be able to interest your clients. It is worth considering how to show the “human side” of the business. For example, you may publish posts with office photos, employee stories, events held, and team building.

Posts about the company’s quarterly achievements may be full of dull figures. These may seem impressive; however, it is better to keep them for LinkedIn. An expression of gratitude to your subscribers is more relevant for Facebook. You may write something like “Last month we set up a record in the number of sales. Thank you for helping us enhance our business.” Such information will be more acceptable for users than mere statistics.

Mistake 3. Publishing similar information

To make a business page interesting, don’t rewrite the same post with different words. Try to publish various content. Statista research shows that customers are primarily attracted to status, photo, and video posts. Therefore, you can combine them on your page so that the users don’t get bored.

To better organize yourself, you should schedule content weekly. So, a clothing store can dedicate the first week of the month to spring fashion trends. In the second week, it will publish news about the upcoming exhibition. In the third week, users will learn about a contest for photographs of clients in brand clothes. The fourth is for new models of coats. The store can diversify this content with unique photos, videos, and posters. 

To understand what content attracts the target audience the most, analyze the data from the “Statistics” tab. Given the greater popularity of some publications, you can adjust the content strategy to increase user engagement.

It is worth paying attention to the smallest details, up to the day and time of the publication of the post. Coschedule researchers found that the optimal time for B2B firms to post on Facebook is between 3:00 pm and 4:00 pm. But this range may vary depending on the type of business.

Mistake 4. Irregular posts

Maintaining a Facebook page, like any other job, requires regularity. Posting every day in one month and then “disappearing” for a couple of weeks in the next one is not a good tactic. Users will forget about the brand, and fewer new subscribers will see the page in the feed. Therefore, your content strategy should include regular posts so that your profile remains active and attracts new subscribers (once a day, every other day, five times a week).

The opposite approach – overposting – also risks getting a backlash. Frequent pop-up messages mentioning a company can annoy users and push them to unsubscribe. “Spam” is welcome if the posts inform subscribers about an advertising campaign, great deals, sales, or show the chronicle of a large-scale event.

Mistake 5. Incomplete profile

A Facebook page is, in fact, a business card of a company on a social network, with certain advantages. Firstly, the company can give more information than on a sheet of paper 85 by 85 mm in size. Secondly, by using a profile on a social network, a person can interact with a brand, and learn more interesting details about it.

Therefore, do not neglect the opportunity to attract users and ignore some profile options. It is better to provide the necessary information profitably, without missing important issues for attracting the audience:

• Use unique high-quality profiles and cover images that are associated with the brand and featured in other official sources.
• Make sure that the URL of the page matches the name of the company.
• Correctly indicate the business category so that the profile is displayed when searching.
• Fill the “About” tab with clear and interesting content, briefly outlining the features and benefits of your brand. A friendly tone is welcome.
• Do not ignore calls to action – “Sign up”, “Watch the video”, “Subscribe” and the like. Thus, the user will understand what to do with the published content.
• Do not forget about the “Shop” option, which allows you to submit part of the advertising information in a “specially designated place”. Priority products can be placed in the subscribers’ access area, offering to go to the company’s website to learn more about the entire range.
• Indicate contact information: the more communication channels a business uses, the more convenient it is for customers to contact the company.
• Try to respond to messages and comments on Facebook as they come in, or at least on the same day.
• Post customer reviews about the company so that the mechanism of social influence works. When a subscriber sees enough unbiased detailed reviews, they are more likely to believe in the quality of the company’s services.

It is worth considering how to skillfully and profitably present information so as not to overload the user and create a favorable impression of viewing your profile.

Mistake 6. Ignoring the promotion feature

Free advertising and publishing interesting posts work well, but slowly. When a business seeks to expand its audience and increase sales, it is worth taking advantage of the Facebook promotion feature.

To do this, you need to select a candidate for advertising – the most readable post, with an attractive headline and an interesting picture. Then click the “Promote Post” button in the lower right corner of the post, selecting the target audience, budget, and Facebook ad expiration date. With this feature, the business will get more leads and increase sales and brand awareness.

Although promoting a post is considered an ad, this feature doesn’t offer as many opportunities as Ads Manager. The owner can improve the advertisement by specifying:

• on what devices it is better to conduct an advertising campaign (computer, smartphone, or tablet);
• where to place ads (in the news feed or the right column of Facebook, in Instagram stories, in the “Home” tab in Messenger or other locales);
• the purpose of advertising (to increase conversion, subscribers, or lead generation);
• the target group (interests, gender, and age).

Publication promotion is mainly used when you need to increase the target audience and brand awareness. For more serious selling purposes, use Ads Manager.

Mistake 7. Purposeless profile maintenance

To get the desired results from Facebook, you need to understand the purpose for which the company created a profile on the social network. Accordingly, depending on the purpose, the format of maintaining the page and the results will differ. If a business needs to drive sales, it will choose specific content, a relevant message of the posts, and ads. If it is necessary to increase the audience and introduce the brand, then the content and promotion methods will be different. Accordingly, the results are also measured either in conversion rates or in an increase in the number of subscribers per month.

When the goal is unclear, the owner maintains their page for the sake of being on the Internet. It is more difficult to keep the attention of users, generate relevant content helping to form the right idea about the brand and develop a profile on Facebook. The more precise the goal is, the easier it is to achieve.

Mistake 8. Ignoring negative reviews

Negative feedback is inevitable. Even if a company tries to provide services at a high level, some situations cause customer dissatisfaction. So many men, so many minds. Businesses should take into account each of them and be able to respond to criticism.

Ignoring negative reviews is not the best customer service tactic. This will negatively affect the perception of the brand by users. Therefore, it is worth considering the tactics of working with negative comments. You may even disable the possibility to leave a review (Settings – Edit pages – Disable the display of reviews) and deprive yourself of the opportunity to receive commendable ratings. Or skillfully monitor them through “Home – Reviews – Filter by rating” and manage them.

When dealing with negative reviews, you should adhere to the following tactics:

• Responsiveness. The faster an SMM manager responds to a review, the fewer users will see a negative assessment without explaining the reasons for the current situation on the part of the business. When a client who left a negative comment turns out to be wrong, the organization will justify itself in the eyes of other users. If the client turns out to be right, then the business will be able to smooth over the negative impression by apologizing and offering bonuses. Subscribers will loyally perceive an apology in response to a negative review.
• Tact. In a fit of feelings, a client can emotionally speak out against a company. A representative of an organization should not allow themselves such liberties as to take words personally. They should tactfully and calmly respond to the negative feedback, act logically, and maintain a constructive dialogue. In no case blame the client, even if they are wrong, try to understand the essence of the problem and solve it in the best way. Thus, you won’t worsen the atmosphere of cooperation and friendliness.

Mistake 9. Lack of adaptation for mobile devices

Do not ignore the fact that 98.5% of active Facebook users access the social network through mobile devices. Therefore, a business should optimize its page for tablets, smartphones, and netbooks. Elements must be scaled to fit a particular device, they must not be cut off or become inaccessible. After all, if it is inconvenient for a user to explore the profile, they will unsubscribe from the organization and choose a better competitor.

Therefore, before uploading a cover for a Facebook profile, ask your designer to place all valuable information (logo, slogan, call to action) in the center. If they are placed a little to the right, there is a risk that this part of the picture will be cut off and become inaccessible when viewed on a mobile device.

After placing the cover on the page, you need to check how it will look if you enter the profile from different devices. This can be done using real physical devices or using developer tools (F12 – Select mobile device icon on the toolbar). This is an easy way to make sure that the page is adapted to different types of smartphones.

Mistake 10. Neglecting Facebook Algorithms

To successfully develop a page, you need to understand how Facebook algorithms work. Following the established rules will help you to ensure that publications are visible on the platform to a wider range of users.

The Facebook algorithm affects what posts people see while reading the feed and in what order the messages appear. The program evaluates each post and shows them in descending order by the user’s interests, not by the time of publication.

But no matter how many times the ranking algorithm changes, the basic rules will always be relevant:

• publish content that users want to see;
• share reliable and accurate information;
• avoid the “black” way of promotion through paying for comments and likes;
• communicate with the audience in the comments;
• encourage users to share posts;
• use video content (stories and reels).

You can track Facebook algorithm updates on the Meta website.

Conclusion

When a business takes into account the 10 Facebook marketing mistakes listed above, it will be able to properly build a promotion strategy, attract as many customers as possible and achieve good results. These are important to consider because, according to the Canva chief evangelist Guy Kawasaki, “A large social-media presence is important because it’s one of the last ways to conduct cost-effective marketing. Social media enables a small business to earn eyeballs and ears.”