Social media plays a significant role in any business’s marketing strategy – or at least it should. In a recent report, marketers have realized the import of social media: a whopping 92% of marketers stated that social media was important to their business.
However, the same study shows that marketers still many questions about using social media for business. This implies that there are still gray areas which businesses need to explore in order to more effectively incorporate social media in their marketing strategy.
Part of this need to understand social media for business is separating myths from fact. If you want to maximize the benefits of social media, make sure that you don’t fall for these myths.
1. Social media is only for attracting new customers.
Research has debunked this idea, showing that on average, 84% of fans of business Facebook pages are current or former customers. While social media can – and does – attract new customers, you need to take advantage of the platforms to nurture relationships with your current customers.
2. Social media is too informal for a “proper” business.
One can’t blame people who wear suits to work every day for thinking this, what with social media platforms being rife with photos of what people eat, Justin Bieber’s latest mischief, and the latest movie that sucked so badly.
To debunk this myth, just take a look at big brands and government agencies that have taken to Twitter to show their human side. This year, the CIA made waves with its first tweet.
We can neither confirm nor deny that this is our first tweet.
— CIA (@CIA) June 6, 2014
Old Spice is also known for its banter on social media, with tweets like the one below engaging its followers.
Fun test! Count how many grains of sand are in this new Old Spice commercial. https://t.co/iRH66Iqk9O
— Old Spice (@OldSpice) September 9, 2014
3. The ROI can be measured exactly.
While social media does give a return on your investment, there are yet no exact methods on how to calculate this. According to Aidan Cassidy, social media marketing expert, “The biggest myth about social media is that there’s a huge ROI associated with it. The truth is, everyone is still sort of scratching their heads about how to calculate that ROI. Sure you might be sending a lot of referrals back to your site, but how many of those conversions and referrals are leading to sales? Still hard to say.”
4. Social media is a luxury.
Smaller businesses may see social media as an added expense, especially in terms of manpower and time. But this is not necessarily true.
“Despite the unanswered ROI question, having active social media accounts, at least an active Twitter account, is essential to staying relevant in the contemporary business world. It not only shows that your business is current, but its appealing to the most important demographic of all: the millennial,” says Aidan Cassidy.
The trick is to understand and determine your social media strategy, as well as learn to use tools to streamline the process.
5. You should be on every social media platform.
Your customers are on every platform, why shouldn’t you? The truth is that NOT all of your customers are on every single platform. If you set up social media accounts on too many platforms, you’ll certainly be spreading yourself out thinly and will be missing out on the results that a focused effort can bring.
What you should do instead is to identify which channels your customers are most active in. You can see this by looking at Facebook insights, the number of retweets/replies you get, and other similar details. To help you get started, the most popular social media platforms are as follows.
- YouTube
You will want to see if your customers are active in these platforms, and then you can focus on them to optimize your marketing strategy.
6. Post social media updates as much as you can.
There’s the idea that the more often you post on Facebook, for example, the better your campaign will perform.
WRONG!
The goal is to post regularly but not flood your fans’ newsfeed. You want to provide interesting and timely content, and most of all, you want likes, clicks, and comments. Posting too often might actually lower these elements, which leads to lower exposure in the future (thanks to Facebook’s changing algorithms).
Post once or twice – maybe thrice – a day. See how your fans react, and adjust your posting frequency as necessary.
7. Majority of what you share should be about your business and links to your website.
Social media is not merely about broadcasting. Yes, your ultimate goal is to get people to visit your site and buy from you. However, if all you share on social media is about you, your company, and your products/services, you’ll get the opposite effect. Your followers will start ignoring your posts, and maybe even unfollow you.
The fix: share the content of others. Share quotes, images, and ask questions/run polls. Reply to comments and tweets. Retweet and reshare.
If you want to gain results from your social media marketing efforts, forget these myths. Focus on what’s real instead.
Originally posted on December 19, 2014 @ 1:30 pm