Top Social Media Marketing Myths You Should Avoid in 2018

In today’s day, Social media has taken an irreplaceable spot in our lives and is an indispensable element to our marketing. Marketers, entrepreneurs, small startups, media and advertising companies day in and day out employ strategies of social media for business. In this article, we will talk about the top social media marketing myths. Read below to understand better.

A research by Snapapp says that 94% of B2B marketers use Linkedin as part of their content strategy. Other widely used platforms include Twitter(87%), Facebook(84%), YouTube(74%) and Google+(62%).

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But this enormous popularity of social media has a flipside too. Social media has been more hyped and over-used than ever and instead of prioritizing on practical measures, real returns, and limitations of the strategy, many of us have declared social media marketing as a magic wand that gives higher visibility to our brand.

The reality is, that social media requires a lot of hard work, research and analysis, and this like any other marketing strategy can’t be learnt in a day’s time. Hence, I would like to start by addressing some common social media marketing myths that most of us time and again use.

Social Media Marketing Myths

Myth 1#

Let’s not get personal with Social Media

Agreed that you have a brand to run that must resonate with the thought processes of your audiences, but that does not mean that you can’t publish content that reflects your brand’s persona. You should not hesitate in showcasing your brand’s humour, people that work at your company and links to news content that “you” find interesting. This makes you stand out as a brand and underpins your identity in the eyes of your audience.

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Myth 2#

Hashtag it is!

The purpose of hashtags is that they bring together common conversation threads. They have secured a popular spot on most of the social networks, including Twitter, Facebook, Google+, Instagram, and Pinterest. You can use it to get indexed by the social network and it becomes discoverable by other users. But you can’t leverage them to turn your marketing dreams into reality. Including hashtags everywhere spoils the purpose and makes you look too desperate.

Myth 3#

Social media is just about brand awareness and engagement

Sure, Social Media creates awareness and establishes a good identity for your brand. But it is also capable of doing much more than that. Social media drives customers to your platform and eventually conversions. To convince you, I have some statistics from Hubspot right here:

• Companies that use Twitter average 2X more leads than those that don’t.
• Companies with 1000+ more Twitter followers get 6X more traffic.
• 45% of marketers note social media has a below average cost-per-lead compared to other channels.
• 62% of companies using LinkedIn for marketing have acquired a customer from it.
• 52% of companies using Facebook for marketing have acquired a customer from it.
• 44 % of companies using Twitter for marketing have acquired a customer from it.

Also, another research by Hubspot says that 61% Marketers in the US rely on Social Media for generation of leads.

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Myth 4#

Scheduled posts will do my job

There are many tools out there that help you in posting on social media. The tools are great as they save time and especially when you have too many tasks at hand or on weekends when you are away from your office. However, you should not use them as a substitute for posting in real-time. It is called social media for a reason. You “need” to socialize with your customers or followers, and for which there has to be a two-way conversation.

Myth 5#

Good content means good traffic

Good content does attract customers, but only if they know about it. You can’t just create great content and sit in a corner waiting for the customers to visit your website. The need of the hour is to be more practical here, rather than imagining an ideal scenario. You are not the only “one” producing good content, and even if your content is capable of making you a differentiator, your customers probably don’t know about it.

So distributing the content through right media is important as that gives the initial push. Once they come across the great content that you serve, they will automatically press the share button. And then your work is “actually” considered done.

Myth 6#

Evergreen content is good enough as I don’t have time to produce new content

Social media moves at a great pace. Content is updated every second on the platforms. And this might make you feel that you do not have enough time or resources to produce fresh content every day. You might want to repurpose content or use your “evergreen” content to fight this. This is a good route to take sometimes, but not always. You can’t share the exact same content every time because this would make you lose a substantial chunk of your user base. Fresh content makes your audience stay tuned to your product and they look forward to your upcoming content. You need to figure out time and manage resources to keep your audiences engaged by providing a good balance of fresh, repurposed and curated content.

Myth 7#

More followers means a successful marketing strategy

Getting likes is an accomplishment for your brand. But it is not the only parameter for measuring the success of your marketing campaign. It is one of the surface-level metrics that somewhat helps you in assessing the effectiveness of your campaign.

Your plan of action should not be to blindly chase your followers. These people might not even care about your brand and would not even end up purchasing anything from you.

So, Instead of the above, your plan should be focused on more substantial actions by your followers such as clicks or their on-site behaviour. The quality of your followers can be evaluated through their engagement with your content. Few interested and loyal customers are worth more than 100 indifferent users, so it is important for you to not get lost in the number game.

Myth 8#

Social Media Marketing Is Free

The social media networks are free of cost when it comes to logging in and this makes them a great tool to use for organic marketing. However, this aspect of social media should not let you take it for granted. Just like any other marketing channel, you need to invest in time and resources to get the best out of this platform. The return of investment matches your expectations and sometimes surpasses them too when you put in the right advertisement efforts.

Have a look at the statistic that showcases how effective the social media platforms are in delivering the right ROI’s

With this, I have come to the end of the article. I hope that I have been able to give you have a clearer view on social media marketing. Social media marketing is fruitful and worthwhile when you approach it smartly. So do it the right way, guys!

Originally published at wittypen.com on October 11, 2017.