Social media as a marketing channel is beginning to show signs of maturity. The tools marketers can use to deploy and monitor campaigns are getting more robust, functional, integrated and powerful. Strategies for social media marketing success are becoming more tried and true by the day. However, many misperceptions about social media marketing persist and continue to be evangelized by the species known as Expertum Social Medium.
- Engaging with people is the key to success (BUSTED)– This is a common fallacy for campaigns focused on growing leads or sales. While there’s nothing wrong with engaging with folks in social media, engagement alone will provide very little or negative return for a campaign. The act of engaging in social media conversation cannot be scaled, adequately pegged to ROI or easily tracked.Creating great problem-solving or entertaining content is the key to success.
- More friends, fans and followers equate to more influence (BUSTED) – The number of friends, fans or followers a brand has merely represents the potentialto influence more people. Given the real-time nature of Twitter and Facebook’s EdgeRank algorithm, a brand’s message will only reach a small portion of its followers anyway.Influence is ultimately measured by how many conversions or customers a campaign delivers.
- Good social media marketing requires reciprocation and listening (BUSTED)– If the resources are in place reciprocation and listening can certainly be a part of the social media marketing campaign. However, it’s not going to deliver leads and new customers in a predictable, scalable fashion. Besides, take a look at some of the top brands in the world on Twitter or Facebook. See much reciprocation or engagement from listening?Good social media marketing requires good content.
- Social media is the only marketing a company needs (BUSTED)– This is a one-way ticket to business failure. No one channel alone, for most companies, will suffice for delivering sales-ready leads or customers. Good social media marketing leverages many channels, both online and offline.Social media was responsible for delivering just over 12% of new customers to Kuno over the last 12 months. Ignoring the other channels would probably lead to business failure.
- Social media ROI can’t be tracked with dollars (BUSTED)– If the goal of the campaign is to acquire leads or customers, then ROI can be tracked using landing pages, coupons, special offer codes, etc. For customer service type activities, ROI is measured using the same churn metrics as other activities.With marketing software, a CRM and landing pages, it’s very easy to track ROI for social media today.
Hopefully, the above will help squelch the Expertum Social Medium ethos. In the grand scheme of things, social media marketing is a relatively new channel, but its goals are the same as every other channel—deliver leads and/or customers, or reduce churn. Measurement, strategy and tactics should reflect this. For more help understanding how social media marketing and influence can impact your business, watch our panel discussion with Jay Baer, Laura “Pistachio” Fitton and Jim Kukral.
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