Common Social Media Marketing Myths Debunked
Social media has become an inherent factor in the lives of modern individuals and businesses alike. An experienced social media expert can guide you to uncover unprecedented success and an abundance of benefits by using robust social media marketing.
To reap the benefits of social media marketing, it is essential to discard the unwanted myths and illusions related to this modern business strategy. Partnering with a seasoned social media consultant will help entrepreneurs to stick to the essentials while jettisoning the myths.
The Most Common Myths Associated With Social Media Marketing
Myth 1. The feeling that your customers do not dig social media
Truth: Do not think your customers may not be on social media. Social media use has become a global phenomenon.
Records show that over 2.39 billion people across the globe have been active on social media during 2019. The number, naturally, is going to increase. No wonder, today, there’s little—or close to nothing—that hasn’t been touched by social media in one way or the other. There’s a social media platform for everyone and everything now.
A few statistics about social media usage:
• The likelihood of purchasing something from a brand followed on social media is 7 out of 10 among Gen Xers.
• Millennials - over 30% of them - tend to engage with some brand at least once a month on social media.
• Around 60% of Baby Boomers look for social media promotions. There are several social media platforms to connect with personal and professional contacts. With social media consultants and social media experts to guide you, your chances of connecting with your target audience are high. There’s always one or more social media marketing platforms that align with your business or brand. So just discard the misconception that you may not find your customer on social media.
Myth 2. Presence in every social media platform is a must-have feature
Truth: Being omnipresent on social media is not mandatory. It is not practically required.
Even a few marketers might have preached that you need to be present on all existing (and upcoming!) social media platforms for succeeding in your business venture. It’s simply not the case. Just as you cannot be everywhere in the real world at once, you need not make yourself available on every social media platform.
Social media experts will help you to understand where your real customers – both existing and potential – hang out. This enables you to determine which social media platform best suits your purpose. If you hook up with the right social media consultant, you can create your own, focused strategy and channelize your marketing efforts to reach your target audience. You may run customized research on the different platforms, check the results each of them fetches. Then you may focus on the one that has the potential to facilitate reaching out to the intended audience.
Myth 3. Social media marketing is for free
Truth: Nothing comes absolutely free; social media is free to join, but running the account and campaigns does have a price tag.
While social media platforms are free to join, entrepreneurs need social media experts to strategically run their accounts and post relevant and effective content. You require efficient graphic designers to create attractive content and analysts to keep you informed about the performance of your campaign.
Certain specific services and tools involve payment of a nominal amount of money. Running successful social media campaigns depends on getting the right resources such as social media consultants and marketers. Even if you have to invest money, social media proves to be an affordable and robust way to boost brand awareness, audiences, and more importantly, leads. The investment is worth your while.
Myth 4. Social media is mostly used by young people only
Truth: Although the young population is said to have a major share of social media usage, people of all ages hook into it nowadays.
There was a time when only young people were considered tech-savvy and they tended to spend more time on social media. With the advancement in digital devices and the exponentially growing Internet connectivity, just anyone is a potential social media user in the contemporary world. In fact, there’s no age bar for social media use. Statistics show that as high as 90% of the social media users before a few years in the 18 to 25 age group, the current trend is that more than 80% of the users are 30 to 40-year-olds. Nearly 72% of the people in the age group 50 to 64 are on social media today. Social media is not just a youth-centric channel anymore.
Myth 5. Having more number of fans and followers in social media makes you successful and boosts your brand
Truth: Not just quantity, quality is a crucial factor too on social media for achieving brand visibility as well as reputation.
Yes, you do need to accumulate as many fans and followers as possible. But not all of them will become your customers; relevancy plays a vital role here. The mere fact that you have a large number of fans and followers for your specific brand alone will not suffice. You still need to put in regular effort to ensure that your brand is best visible on social media in order to generate leads and achieve conversion.
One of the main advantages of a website is to gain visibility. Your website helps you showcase your products and services to the world; it allows you to extend your visibility nationally and internationally. The web is a market that knows no boundaries.
Businesses must not indulge in judging their social media marketing success by the number of connections alone, such as friends, followers, and fans. Reality is that although the size of your social media account may be considered as social proof, it is not the sole indicator of the success of your specific social media strategy.
Social media experts will help you to accomplish a huge number of fans and followers. At the same time, they ensure that your marketing strategy provides value to the community and engages users continuously. This naturally helps to nurture your business.
Myth 6. Making use of social media marketing strategy alone is sufficient for business success
Truth: Social media alone will not solve the purpose of building a brand reputation; it is not a stand-alone strategy.
From the perspective that a business is inseparable from its brand, social media indeed helps greatly to boost your products and services. It allows direct interaction with your target audience and customers on a personalized basis.
However, to achieve your business objectives and earn the goodwill required for growing your business, you need the help of other traditional and tech-driven marketing mediums. With a combined effort that includes exhibitions, outdoor campaigns, and direct mailers, you may ensure a fail-safe branding of your products and business. In fact, when combined with other digital marketing approaches such as content marketing, SEO, and pay per click advertising, social media marketing performs best. Your Digital marketing consultant will be able to guide you in proportionately combining these strategies to the best effect so that you can reap the full benefits of the combined marketing strategy.
Myth 7. You will be able to see big results out of your social media marketing activities quickly
Truth: Building your social media presence and establishing a decent following is a time and effort-consuming task.
One of the primary aims of social media marketing is building your brand’s presence; it calls for consistent and constant efforts that will consume time. In fact, businesses and entrepreneurs must be willing to work exclusively on community building for 6-12 months. Only then, they can expect any predictable and consistent results. It must be noted here that while paid ads can enable quick reach and increase the speed of business growth significantly, you need to invest in additional resources such as community management and content marketing for ensuring better awareness and ongoing engagement.
Myth 8. Mere pitching of the product and service will help to sell on social media
Truth: Selling on social media by employing just marketing and sales pitches will not get you far. You have to value your community and treat them well.
You cannot just pitch your products and services on social media expecting people to pay attention, consider, and purchase. Your followers will never want to be blasted with marketing and sales pitches whenever they visit your social media page.
It is through creating value to your followers—by offering inspirational, educational, and entertaining content that satiates their needs—that you can engage them. Only then comes the part where you may lead them through the marketing funnel to arrive at leads. The crucial factor is enticing your customers to give your product a try by providing them the useful and relevant information they seek and expect.
Social media experts will help you to move down the sales funnel in the right way at the right pace. You need to begin by providing helpful content, collect potential customers’ details, and build a relationship that eventually leads to making an offer.
Myth 9. Neglecting negative reviews and feedback on social media doesn’t hurt
Truth: It does hurt. The feedback on a social media channel is one of the most valuable forms of business feedback that impacts your business.
Social media, being an open platform, enables your customers to give direct feedback to you after having purchased and used your products and services. Product reviews will necessitate you to accept both accolades and denunciations. You may be faced with approvals as well as complaints. You, as the business owner, must go through all the feedback that you receive from your customers. Social media experts will help you to manage this time- consuming task by using automation tools available for this purpose.
You must make it a point not to shun away from poor reviews, negative comments, and complaints. You must rather acknowledge the users and attempt to address their concerns or issues, finding ways to avoid such issues in the future.
Roughly 68% of social media users are likely to check your social media profile first, to review your products and services. It is better to let them see a few negative feedbacks with your genuine response, rather than letting them see a few bad comments that have no response. Your indifference will put them off, spoiling your chances.
Myth 10. Hashtags are indispensable for every post
Truth: You must use hashtags only in moderation and when you find them to be absolutely necessary.
Yes, hashtags are taking social media by storm. Most of the social media channels are overflowing with them. It is essential to note here that the purpose of hashtags is to join the common conversation thread together.
Stuffing your posts with unnecessary hashtags will not only be amateurish but it will also cause adverse, unwanted effects on your business or brand. Giving them a skip is even better if you are unsure.
Unique & Specific hashtags are the route to increased engagement: Being specific and unique in hashtag usage is crucial. Overuse must be avoided. Hashtags may be considered as a user-friendly way for the users who follow them and not as a shortcut to give life to all of your marketing dreams.
Wrap-up
Setting realistic expectations and partnering with the best social media expert will help your business to effectively connect with the intended people, tell your brand’s story, and provide value to your customers. Follow the right approach while not forgetting to bust unnecessary myths. This will ensure that you realize the maximum potential of the social media channel.
Author Bio:
Sorav Jain is the founder of soravjain.com, echoVME and Digital Scholar, all geared towards the common goal of exploring the full potential of digital marketing in a modern world. He is an established technical SEO expert, with years of experience in the field of SMM and content creation as well. You can follow him on his social media handles for all the latest updates on digital!
