In the previous blog post we discussed four real reasons why you should consider social media marketing for your business. This time we would like to provide a reality check, crushing the most common social media marketing myths we’ve come across in our practice.
Myth #1: Social media marketing will bring new customers to my doors
Despite the fact that some social media tactics have the power to bring you new clients, we see social media more as a relationship building tool than a sales tool. The thing is most of the people with whom you are interacting in social media are your current customers. According to the research from DDB, 84% of the followers of company Facebook pages are current or former customers of the brand. Thus if your social media activities are limited to posting on your page (as opposed to running social media ads) you can’t really expect new customers to find you.
Myth #2: A large number of followers is the best evidence of success
The number of fans and followers seems to be the most prominent metric available for you to measure your social media success. But don’t let it fool you. While it’s easy to measure a large number of followers doesn’t necessarily indicate that your social media strategy is successful.
In fact social media marketing is more about quality than quantity. Small social media communities composed of highly-engaged followers that already expressed some interest in your offerings are more important than a passive crowd that doesn’t really care about your brand.
Myth #3: I should focus on pitching my products or services if I want social media marketing to work for me
This myth is the most dangerous among all listed here. If your goal is to receive tangible business benefits from your social media channels, pitching your followers seems to be an obvious choice. However the truth is your fans are following you not because they want to be pitched. They want to be entertained, inspired, educated or just heard. Let’s be honest, listening to your marketing messages is not their favourite thing to do.
That being said, you should respect your followers and deliver content that matches their interests while being relevant to your business. Otherwise they may get blind to your promotional efforts or simply unfollow.
Myth #4: According to my calculations, social media marketing is going to bring me X% in revenue in the next 3 months
Don’t get us wrong; here at Good Robots we are big fans of planning. However if you are just making you first steps in the world of social media there are a couple of things you should take into consideration before outlining your goals and setting your KPI’s.
The first thing is the fact that humans, unfortunately, are not the most predictable creatures. You cannot expect them to like your posts, spread the word, or buy from you. Thus even if you are following the social media best practices and do your best optimizing your social media tactics, the real outcome still may fall far short of your expectations.
Moreover social media marketing success usually doesn’t come overnight. With few exceptions, most businesses will find themselves in a situation when they will have to work on community building for up to a year, before receiving consistent and predictable results.
