Is your company on the lookout for a digital marketing specialist to take charge of your online marketing? Perhaps you’re a marketing expert, perhaps you’re the social media manager, or perhaps you’re the SEO specialist for small businesses like yours.

No matter what your digital marketing specialist role is, you will inevitably make mistakes. The question is: do you want to look like a real digital marketing professional, or do you just want to appear to be one?

Here are five errors marketers make online that make them appear less than sincere when promoting a product or brand. Be forewarned, this article is littered with examples.

1. Using Out-of-Home Media

Out-of-home media is media that isn’t connected to your website or blog. Traditional billboards, magazine spreads, and television spots are all examples of out-of-home media. Online videos that play in a YouTube playlist are also considered out-of-home media.

Out-of-home media can be a great choice for your marketing campaign. It provides you with the opportunity to connect with potential customers when they’re not necessarily searching for your product or service. This is also known as unstructured lead generation.

2. Not Testing Different Formats

In the digital world, content is constantly evolving and changing. To keep up with the trends, you need to be testing different formats and reading metrics to determine which one is most effective for your audience.

YouTube is the most popular social media platform. It’s a great option for marketers because your videos can range from one to 15 minutes and you can put a call-to-action at the end of each video.

Videos are great because viewers can pause or rewind them as needed. This means they can more easily absorb the message being delivered. If you’re not using videos in your marketing, you’re potentially losing out on a great way to communicate with potential customers.

3. Posting At the Right Time

When you post at the right time, you get the most engagement. This can mean getting in front of your target audience when they’re already interested in your product or service, or it can mean getting in front of your target audience when they’re just entering the area of interest.

To figure out when to post, you need to look at the trends. If you notice a spike in interest in your product or service, there’s usually a good opportunity to post. If you notice that people are starting to search for your product or service, you may want to consider posting on your Facebook or Twitter profiles. Also, look at what your competitors are doing and see how you can do the same thing but with your own spin.

For example, if you’re working to promote a travel agency, consider pitching inbound marketing principles to grow a following on Instagram.

4. Using the Wrong Platform

The wrong platform can also hurt your marketing efforts. For instance, if your target audience is on social media, but you’re not on the same platform, it’s as if you haven’t reached out to them at all!

It’s important to consider the demographics of your target audience when choosing a social media platform. If you notice that their primary method of communication is through social media, but you don’t use the same platform, you’re missing out on an opportunity to connect with them.

5. Going Viral

Going viral is when a marketing effort goes supernova and becomes incredibly popular all on its own. This can happen when a blog post or video goes viral, but it can just as easily happen organically as a result of a very effective social media campaign.

The important thing to remember is that while a viral campaign can be incredibly successful, it usually only lasts for a short time. This makes it even more critical to continuously monitor the trends and read the analytics to find out which strategies are producing the best results. Remember: you don’t want to go viral for the sake of going viral.

Hopefully, these five mistakes will help you appear more professional when promoting a product or service. Always test different tactics and metrics to find out which ones work best for your audience. And when you make a mistake, own up to it and learn from it. You’ll look better for it!