Social media is the most amazing thing to hit the marketing world in decades. It’s nearly free, especially if you’re not spending enormous amounts of time on it. You can reach plenty of people, which makes you nearly famous, if you think about it. Plus, Twitter and Facebook are so hot right now, which means you don’t need to do much of anything to market with them. Essentially, you just have to show up.
There are a million ways to market on social media without putting forth a lot of effort. Maybe you won’t make a sale or reach out to new customers, but who cares when you’re making money for doing nothing? You probably won’t worry much about metrics, but how can you worry about that when your adoring social media fans are waiting? Instead, you can do these things to keep a social media presence without a lot of effort (or results).
Auto Posting
Go ahead and schedule all of your tweets for the next five years. Then you won’t even need to open Twitter again unless it’s to post fun photos of your dog. Who cares if the content is relevant? At least your company is staying in front of people via their Twitter feed.
Link Accounts
Come to think of it, you can just do that for your Facebook posts, too. It doesn’t matter that your Facebook fans are probably Twitter followers, too. They won’t mind seeing the same thing over and over.
Same Content on All Channels
While you’re at it, go ahead and link all your social media accounts so your auto-posts populate all your social media feeds at the same time. No one will find that annoying at all.
No Engagement Necessary
There’s no need to engage on social media aside from your automated posts. Your customers really don’t care to know there are real people behind the brand, and besides, it takes too much time to answer questions and share cool stuff on Twitter and Facebook.
No Follow-Back Girl (Or Guy)
You don’t need to follow people back. You’re the popular one here, and that means all eyes should be on you. Reciprocation just means more work.
Blogging Is Boring
Maybe companies who blog more than twenty times per month get five times more traffic than companies that blog once per week, but who has time to create a content calendar, write content, and optimize for search engines? Not you!
LinkedIn Is for Losers
Don’t even bother with LinkedIn or Google+. Seriously, that stuff’s only for the boring people who are serious about lead generation through social media. That’s way too much work.
All Eyes on You
Fill your company Instagram with selfies and pictures of your food. No one really cares what your company is actually doing, and pictures of your shoes are way more exciting.
More Brownie Recipes, Please
Pinterest is a lot easier to use if you don’t include information about your company or prices for goods and services. That will leave you more time to cruise for recipes and bathroom decorating ideas.
DistractionTube
YouTube is a place to watch videos when you’re stressed out about how much social media work you’ve done lately. There’s no need to use it for your own marketing needs.
Comments Are Bad News
Feel free to ignore comments on your social media, especially if the criticism is harsh. In fact, go ahead and delete it so others don’t feel tempted to corroborate. No one needs that kind of stress.
Self-Promo Only
When others in your company do cool things, there’s no need to promote that on your social media channels. Your content is always the best, so why should you put forth the effort to share others’ work with your followers?
It’s Better to Ask Forgiveness
When you seen a fun image that belongs to someone else, go ahead and take it. There’s no need to ask for permission, because that just takes a lot of time. Besides, if someone does get mad about it, you won’t have to pay for it. That’s on the company’s dime.
Only Legit Customers, Please
There’s no need to interact with other brands. Brands can’t buy stuff, so you’re really just wasting your time.
Self-Targeted Content FTW
Buyer personas are boring, and you are not. Therefore, go ahead and post as if you’re the target audience. Only those as cool as you should be buying from your company, anyway.
#oops
Newsjacking is the easiest way to share content, so you could do that—and only that—to keep your feed fresh. Don’t worry about researching those newsjacking hashtags, either. Nothing bad has ever come from that.
Look at Me!
If you feel like people aren’t paying attention, tweet something every fifteen minutes. Doesn’t matter what. No one can ignore you then!
Math Stinks
Analytics are math, and math stinks. Social media should be a party all day long, so who has time to figure out if all this fun is working?
(In case you were wondering, this is absolutely, definitely satire.)
Obviously, social media management shouldn’t be easy at all. With such a powerful tool at your fingertips, there’s no excuse to take the lazy way out. You’re already dealing with a marketing device that costs little more than time—a lot of time, smarts—plenty of that, and diplomacy. So much diplomacy. If you do it right, take the time, use the smarts, and be as diplomatic as possible, your company and brand could see amazing results. If you do it wrong, not only is your social media useless, but it could also make you a laughingstock.
image credit: ambro/freedigitalphotos.net
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