As social media becomes the number one way people are communicating, brands and their marketing teams must understand and adopt the effective ways to use social media. So many times brands just post links up with pics or articles to promote themselves. This is the mindset of traditional marketers. When a brand’s ad runs it basically screams at you and pops up on you constantly to get you to either click to buy or read to by. Its becoming more worrisome to the consumer. The consumer is getting tired of the ads and they are becoming less fond of brands that just scream at them BUY BUY BUY!! However social media can help. Actually it can help drastically.

With over a billion Facebook users, 250M twitter users, and over 200M Instagram users, it is safe to say social media is a big deal in todays society. Information is being sent by the millisecond and consumes are grasping and receiving information quicker than ever before. Yet traditional marketers and brands who think this is just a fad, refuse to use this correctly and capitalize on this wonderful marketing tool called social media. The biggest mistake brands make is the try to sell sell sell to the consumer without actually being social with the consumer. They rather pour millions on traditional ads during prime time television during the new episode of Scandal. When a brand just post links with calls to action constantly on their social media sites, it begins to look like spam and the consumer treats it as such. Brands need to begin to learn to be human. Actually get involved in your consumers conversations, post everyday things about life. Remember brands: You sell to people not robots. People have feelings, likes dislikes, pet peeves, favorite sports teams, favorite foods. These are all things you as a brand can post about regardless of your company’s industry. Brands need to understand that always being on sell mode is not going to cut it anymore. Consumers now are more inclined to engage with a brand that engages with them and talks to them as a human not a robot. Traditional marketers have a hard time with this because they are so use to just creating an ad checking the demographic it will hit and seeing the numbers. Well its a new day and consumers have to many options to choose from now to just pay attention to ads. They pay attention to brands who can socially catch their attention.

With the emergence of the way consumers can receive information and purchase products and services, it is important that brands understand the consumer mindset. With billions of dollars being spent on ads, traditional marketers are only dabbling with social media. While they are not understanding that the consumer is being bombarded with ads constantly. Your pop up ad on Youtube is just delaying them from watching their desired video. They don’t like that. Brands need to begin to reach consumers emotionally. Its not always about selling your product or service. Its about connecting with he consumer. Brands need to ask themselves this: If you were at an event of any kind, would you immediately approach people with your call to action and selling pitch without even saying the proper greetings and warming up the conversation? The same mindset applies to social media. Social Media is a big event that you are invited to and all your consumers are there with you. Engage wisely!!