Common Myths in Social Media Marketing

Social media can be a powerful tool in your marketing, however, it is important to understand what it is and isn't capable of! It has to be used strategically and with realistic expectations. It's true that social media is ever-changing, however, as social media experts, it's important for us to identify myth from reality in order to create an effective social media strategy.

Here are some common social media marketing myths to take note of.

Social Media Is Just A Sales Tool

Being overly promotional on social media is a sure-fire way to turn people off.

There’s a misconception that social media is essentially a giant sounding board for you to pitch your products and services. If you think about your own use of social media you don’t log on so you can read ads. You go there to socialize and find interesting content. Aim for a healthy mix of content by having a good balance of non-promotional content and promotional posts with calls to action.

You need to be on every single social media platform.

When assessing which social media platforms to use for your business, it's important to make the decision based on your ideal customer and which platform they engage with most often. Not every business needs to be on every platform.

The easiest way to help with understanding what platform you need to focus on is to build out a detailed client/customer persona that outlines the demographics, behaviors, locations, and goals of your ideal client/customer.

Social media will give me instant results.

This is one of the most common myths about social media. However, it takes time and effort to build a community and also to build trust within that community. This is something that doesn't come overnight, you have to be consistent, responsive to comments, and engaging.

Ideally, you should have a social media content strategy in place. All of these things take time and effort, but the payoff can be huge! If this is done correctly, you'll have a loyal following of people who trust your brand. There will always be exceptions to this myth, whether it's a viral video or a shoutout by someone who has a massive following - but majority of the time, social media is a long game.

One thing that can increase the speed of results is investing in growing their community through paid Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram campaigns.

Social media is free

While it is free to join and post on any social media, the chances of you getting good results without spending any money are very slim. It is vital to have a budget for social media marketing. Boosting your posts is a sure way of getting more attention. Running social media marketing requires an investment of resources. In addition to an online spending budget, you need to hire a strong team because social media marketing definitely isn’t a one person job.

The good news is that social media still won’t burn a hole in your pocket. It is still one of the most affordable ways to boost brand awareness, lead generation and ultimately customer acquisition. All this makes your investment worthwhile.

Looking for the perfect team to manage your social media? Well, look no further.