Never, ever listen to the horrible Social Media advice we’re debunking here.
Social media is usable by everyone and that’s a great thing. It connects professionals and friends from around the world with the click of a button, but that also puts a lot of white noise out into the atmosphere. This white noise is compounded upon by how many people now think they’ve perfect social media marketing just because they have a couple of accounts, and through that white noise you might hear some bad advice masked as the gospel. This is one of the flaws of social media, but we’re here today to debunk some of the bad advice there with some of our own.
Bad Advice #1: Social Media Marketing Can Replace Email
If you’re thinking for a second that this advice makes sense, pull that train of thought back to the station, unload all the passengers, and then burn it until there’s nothing left. Social media is in no way a replacement for email marketing, just like how email marketing is in no way a replacement for social media. The two should be worked in-tandem for best results, and these best results truly are worth putting the time and effort in.
Bad Advice#2: Focus on One Network
Not everyone prefers tweets over Facebook posts. Come to think of it, many people don’t even have both accounts to be able to make an educated opinion about the matter. But census data shows that they all will probably have at least one of them, so it is in your best interest to diversify your outreach base and cover as many networks as you can. By focusing on only one you’re cutting your readership potential down in a big way.
Bad Advice#3: Your Updates Can All be Automated
If your readers wanted to talk to a robot they’d still have Bonzi Buddy installed on their computers. People turn to social media for real-time interaction, not for automated responses and updates. The beauty of social media is that there is a give and take, and that the accounts are reactive along with being scheduled. It makes advertising and PR personal in a way that’s never been possible before, and making updates automated takes the humanity out of the equation. A major no-no.
Bad Advice#4: Insert Popular Hashtags to Gain Viewership
Two reasons why this won’t work. A) Popular hashtags are popular because of the things they’re hosted with, and if you hashtag #SpringBreak2014 to advertise the sale you’re having on imported carpets, you’ll never get any recognition amidst the millions of tweets bearing the same tag; and B) Unrelated hashtags are juvenile, immature, and unprofessional. It’s an obvious mark of inexperience if you bombard your tweets with unneeded hashtags, and readers don’t take kindly to that.
Bad Advice#5: Your Industry Doesn’t Use Social Media Much So Neither Should You
False. The heads of every industry are all linked into every single social network, and even if you’re not a B2B business, you can still stand to gain a bit of attention from the top brass. They’re always looking for flavorful, insightful, and popular tweets from within their industry, so even if your local competitors aren’t involved you should start the trend. Social media is a global perspective, after all, and it isn’t dictated by how a local community behaves in a single corner of the world.
Social media is a powerful tool and it’s accessible to everyone, which is part of the problem itself. Too many people are experts now and think they know what’s best. Now we’re not saying we’re the highest resource for this information, but we’re absolutely doing a lot better than the people who are telling you to follow the above advice. There’s a lot of it out there, so make sure you’re following the right stuff.
[ “7796, 7474”]
