03 Jul 5 social media marketing myths BUSTED!
The last decade has seen social media become an invaluable tool for marketers, allowing businesses and brands an instant and easy way to directly communicate with their audience for the first time. However, the relative newness of this form of digital marketing means there is no rulebook in place for how to ‘do’ social media, which has led to a number of perpetuating misconceptions. In this blog we take a look at five common social media myths and look at what your business should be doing instead.
Social media isn’t right for your business
We often hear from businesses that digital marketing won’t work for them because their target audience are not active on social media. Often they believe that social media is a space where only young people hang out, or they have not considered all of the channels that the term ‘social media’ encompasses.
The data speaks for itself. Statistics from the 2019 Global Digital Report (1) shows that almost half of the world’s population are now on social media, and that figure is only growing, with a 9% increase compared to last year’s numbers. With 3.484 billion users out there, businesses can no longer deny that their target audience is active on some form of social media, it’s just a matter of identifying where to find them.
Your business should be on every social media platform
Once businesses decide to take the social media plunge, a classic mistake they make is to set up a profile on every platform, without stopping to think whether it’s worthwhile or appropriate.
It is important for businesses to consider whether their target audience is active on that platform. For example, if you’re targeting an older audience, Facebook has a higher percentage of users aged 45+ than Twitter does. Similarly, not all content works on all platforms, i.e. if your business does nothing visual then it probably doesn’t make sense for it to have an Instagram account.
Effective social media marketing is time-consuming so businesses need to identify what platforms work best in order to focus their time in the places that get the best results.
The more hashtags you use, the better
It is true that hashtags are important for getting your content discovered outside of your already established social media audience, but some people have taken this to mean that you should try to use as many as possible in every post on every platform.
Misuse of hashtags isn’t going to do any active harm to your business but it won’t do any good either. Using too many hashtags will look sloppy and using them on platforms where they have no effect can give off the impression that your business doesn’t really understand social media. When it comes to hashtags, it is worth considering that less is often more and specific can often be better than generic.
You should only promote your own content
Social media has changed the way that your target audience engage with your business, which means that it has to be approached differently from more traditional types of marketing. The purpose of your business’ social media is to find the people out there who are interested in your business – these people are your potential customers – and get them to become your followers or fans.
The truth is that nobody wants to follow a social media account that is purely self-promotional. This way the only followers you are going to attract are people already interested in your business. To broaden your reach, you need to make sure your social media account is offering people something of value, which is why sharing relevant content produced by other industry experts and publications should be a vital part of your social media strategy.
Any ‘young person’ can manage your social media account
Finally, one of the biggest mistakes a business can make when it comes to social media marketing is assigning the task of managing their online presence to the wrong person. Many business owners believe social media is easy and that anyone ‘young’ can do it, because they know how the platforms work.
This couldn’t be further from the truth. Having your own social media accounts and managing social media for a business are two very different things. Businesses need to treat their social media marketing as seriously as they would any print or display advertising. It should be creative but also strategic and driven by analytics to ensure maximum results and minimum risk. All of these things can only be achieved by entrusting it to someone with experience and knowledge of social media marketing.
At RONIN we have a dedicated team of creative, forward-thinking digital marketing experts on hand who will ensure that your social media marketing is working to get the best results for your business. Whether you are starting from scratch or your current social media strategy just isn’t working, we will optimise your profiles and create a cohesive and effective social media campaign that delivers. Contact us to find out more.
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