Social media is a hot trend these days and if used properly, can be the equivalent of printing money. However, a lot of people stumble. They launch campaigns (sometimes with great fanfare) and fail miserably. Here are some of the reasons why your social media campaign failed.

You didn’t track anything

If you sent your message out into the wild and waited for the sales to roll in without monitoring clicks, channels or impressions then you got the whole idea wrong. Even with traditional offline marketing you can monitor how many billboards you have posted across town or how many flyers you handed out in the subway – why wouldn’t you make use of the tracking tools that social media offers? If you haven’t monitored anything you can’t diagnose your campaign, you can’t see what went wrong and why.

You thought you could do social media in ten minutes a day

Social media campaigns are like marriages. You probably won’t pull it through if you only talk to your other half for ten minutes every day.

You didn’t capture leads

A lot of visitors who get on your landing page won’t buy your product. In fact, a huge majority won’t. In terms of conversion rates, anything over 10% is very high, no matter what you are selling (Unless, of course, you are offering free gold nuggets and you actually deliver them. But even then, your conversion rate won’t be close to 100%). This doesn’t mean that you can’t “re-use” visits who didn’t convert. Capture their email addresses or ask them to join your Facebook page and follow up later. They didn’t buy your weight loss product? That could be because they are in top shape or they thought it was too expensive. Sell them a subscription to a gym. Offer them a cheaper product or explain why the first one was well worth the price.

You didn’t set clear objectives

I’ve seen a lot of companies create a Facebook page or a Twitter account without a clear goal in mind. The “build it and they will come” paradigm might work with social media, but you need to define some objectives. Do you want more buzz around your brand? Want to drive more traffic to your sales pages? See how the market would welcome a new product? What's the point?

You didn’t use the right platform

LinkedIn is probably not the best place to advertise your new pizza delivery service, nor is MySpace a good place to post your resume. Use a variety of platforms and see which one works best for your campaign. Split test your message.

Your target was wrong

It’s difficult to market luxury cars to teenagers. If the results of your campaign weren’t as expected, you might want to check if you addressed the right demographics. A lot of social media platforms allow you to track information like age group, location, gender or personal interests. Make sure you use these features!