Social Media Marketing Advice That Can Devastate Your Marketing Effort
No business, be it big or small, can ignore social media as part of its marketing efforts. The question is – how do you come up with the social media marketing strategy for your business? Do you really on some good old advice from the experts?
If you do, you had better use a little caution. Not every piece of social media marketing advice you come across makes sense. And some can actually devastate your otherwise strong marketing effort! Sure seems hard to believe, but it’s true.
So, how do you distinguish the good advice from the bad? Here’s a little help for you:
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Advice You Get
Be Everywhere. Do you even know the number of social media sites that exist in the web world? Hundreds! Apart from the popular ones such as Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Google+, there are hundreds more.
Have you even heard of Netlog? Or Sonico? And with each day, the number just increases.
The Truth
You need to be at the right place. If you are planning to be active on every social media platform, don’t! It will only lead to trouble. And you will end up spending sleepless nights trying to achieve this impossible goal.
Check the demographic, attitude and approach of the popular social media sites. And pick the ones that match your target market, resources and goals. For example, B2B ventures may benefit more from LinkedIn, but Pinterest can be better for B2C retail ventures.
Advice You Get
Be Active 24x7x365. Incessant Facebook posts or continuous tweets don’t mean you are doing great on social media. Anyone can generate content for social media sites, but it’s not the numbers that matter. The engagement does!
Are your activities generating the engagement you wish to get? If not, it’s just a waste.
The Truth
You need to focus on engagement. While it isn’t good to vanish from the social media sites you are active on, it isn’t great to inundate fans and followers with your updates. Emphasize on quality rather than quantity when it comes to social media.
Also, remember that Facebook doesn’t work in the same way as LinkedIn. While your Facebook fans may love a picture of a product, LinkedIn professionals will want to have its specifications. You need to customize your approach according to the site you are on.
Advice You Get
It’s Easy to Respond to Negativity. Different ‘experts’ have different approaches when it comes to how to handle negative comments on social media – some advice you to delete it, some to ignore it, some to fight it out.
Keep in mind, no single approach can solve every negative comment you face.
The Truth
You need to be tactful. There are times when you’ll have to face the heat. And taking an approach similar to Amy’s Baking Company isn’t really the best idea! You need to understand the situation and handle it as required.
A simple solution is to offer an apology and a replacement/refund if it’s your mistake. Fight it out if you are right; but never lose reason. Don’t bother if it’s just a troll trying to gain some cheap publicity at your expense. And ban one if they are there just to make trouble.
There’s no secret to success for social media marketing; and such advice never works.
Don’t let others people’s ideas clog yours. Instead, experiment with the ways to engage with your customers and potential customers on the social sites that matter. Soon, you will have a winning formula of what works for you and what doesn’t.
And you won’t be dependent on anyone’s advice for your social media marketing strategies.
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