Things You’ve Been Told About Social Marketing That Just Aren’t True

Social media is ever-changing, evolving, and taking on new roles in the world we live in. That means it’s also changing the way we do business.

Although it’s definitely picked up in the last few years, the idea of social media marketing for your business has been around long enough to have spurred a few misconceptions.

We’re here to debunk a couple of these myths.

5 common social media marketing myths

1. You need a lot of followers to be successful on social media

Followings are great—it means people like your brand enough to subscribe to your feed and get regular updates.

As a marketer, it’s tempting to measure your social media strategy by the size of your audience But keep in mind that just because someone is following you, it doesn’t mean they’re reading everything you post. Followers are a good metric, but an even better one is engagement.

At Hootsuite, we track a metric that call “Meaningful Relationship Moments” or MRMs. We use it to measure the positive impact that our engagement efforts are having on the business.

We define an MRM as a social media interaction with a customer, prospect, or community member that results in an observable positive change in sentiment or behavior.

At the end of the day, engagement-oriented metrics like MRMs say a lot more about how well you’re doing on social media than vanity metrics like your number of followers.

For more information on what kind of metrics you should really be looking for, check out our post on social media metrics that really matter.

The lesson is here is to make sure your audience is actually engaged with your social media activity. Pay closer attention to your engagement metrics—this could be shares, Retweets, or replies.

2. You have to keep everything online

If you never have any face time with the people who actively engaged with your brand you might as well be a robot.

It’s valuable to put a human face on your business—your customers will be more likely to connect and trust your business with their time and money. And they’ll be able to associate your brand with actual people.

As a tech company, Hootsuite is primarily a digital brand but we have an events team that handles our on-the-ground presence. Hootsuite attends and sponsors events all the time, and we organize social media gatherings like HootUps around the world.

While our online traffic and engagements are extremely important to us—like our weekly #HootChat—it’s also important to us to further develop our connections through human interaction IRL.

3. You need to be active on every social media platform

It’s awesome to see brands put in the effort to be on every platform—it shows that they take social seriously.

From a functional standpoint, when users search for a business online, they’re bound to be able to find them in some shape or form.

The reality is it’s not necessary to sign yourself up for every single social network. In fact, it can be detrimental at times. You might end up spreading yourself too thin and diluting your online presence.

To ensure you focus your efforts where you will get the best results, keep the following in mind:

• Target demographic—Think about your marketing personas and their online behavior. Which networks does your audience frequent the most? It doesn’t make a lot of sense to be making Snapchat videos if most of your target audience spends their time in Facebook groups.
• Functionality—Each social network specializes in something. For example, Twitter is great for discussion but Instagram is great for visually showcasing your product. Which platforms best suit your product or service?
• Specific metrics—Based on your business goals and objectives, you’ll most likely have some key metrics that you’re looking to achieve. It might be driving more traffic to your site or increasing social shares. Consider which platforms will help generate the results you’re seeking. For example, if you’re looking for better click-through rates (CTRs), you might consider using Facebook ads—as they can be targeted to specific users.

4. It’s too late to learn social media

A lot of businesses might think social media is reserved for the younger generation.

While we could sell you on the benefits of social media for your business—we’ll tell you that there’s plenty of support available online if you want to learn more about platform functionality, analytics tools, or even the more abstract social media marketing concepts.

Tune into social media webinars, read industry blogs, or put your student hat on and delve into the world of online social media training with set courseware and regular evaluations.

We have our very own online learning institution, Hootsuite Academy, which provides industry-recognized social media training and certifications. The online training videos are not just easy-to-follow, but add value to growing your career and developing the skills you need to succeed in the digital workplace.

5. Social media is separate from the rest of your marketing strategy

Your social media strategy will deliver best results when it factors in things such as content creation, brand advocacy, and SEO. Social must be supported by a number of other digital initiatives to work effectively.

If you’ve thoroughly studied your target demographic and have nailed down the best times to post, you still need the right piece of content to encourage engagement.

I know. It’s a lot to take in. But we’re not trying to tell you that everything you’ve known to be true, isn’t. Rather, we hope to show you a few ways to do social media marketing better.

Quick Tips to Humanize Your Social Media Marketing

Humanizing social media marketing is an art, and it’s hard to master.

But not everyone instills a human element into their social media marketing, primarily because people consider it unimportant. After all, there are chatbots to answer queries and respond to complaints.

For your online brand, be it blogging or dealing in the actual sale of products, you have to interact with your audience. The reason is because people sitting on the other end don’t feel cared for.

To them, your presence is faceless and you wish to suck them dry of their hard earned money.

If you don’t engage with your audience, how will they know you’re just not in this to fill your pockets and profit? (although usually the objective)

Building trust with your customers goes a long way. There’s no substituting that!

It is less costly for any company to get a customer to repeat purchase or share your content than creating a new one altogether (only logical, wouldn’t you agree?).

So let’s see how we can become more engaging on social media by humanizing social media marketing:

1. Infuse humor

Humor is recommended even for managers in a strictly corporate environment. So, when interacting with your audience online, make sure to throw in a pint of humor. By humor, it does not mean anything and everything goes (no below the belt jokes please!). Just keep a balance of fun, info, and control.

Take the example of Fork You Too, an Indian dining café which took the pun route to engage with its customers.

See the image below:



Image Source: Social Samosa

This form of engagement technique has served them well. It’s both amusing and commendable.

2. Treat the brand as a fictitious character

We understand now that human voice is required to give your brand a personalized touch. You cannot tamper with the brand’s logo and certainly not its name. What you can do is introduce a character or a mascot to represent your brand.

In this way, people can develop a sense of connection with your brand. The McDonald’s Ronald McDonald clown is a classic example of how you can associate with your audience with a mascot.

Perhaps, visualize a few details for your character, add some bio and then map it out in your business. Ensure its relevance. You can’t have Ronald McDonald act as the humanoid voice for an online clinical consultancy firm and its presence over social media.



Image Source: No Cookie

3. Employ easy-to-understand language

People follow you on social media channels to expect amusement and not be bored with corporate jargon and lingo. You should converse with your audience the way you would in your circle of friends and family.

Instead of saying “Thank you” or “Appreciated” to customer feedback, reply “Cheers mate!” Did you see how casual it sounded? You get the ‘feel’ here?
4. Social media posting in advance1

Social media tools are a great way to ease your burden so that you can write down your posts in advance and schedule them for later publishing. Although, you have made content available but when you respond to comments it comes off as a bit awkward.

Your audience can tell the difference between a pre-planned answer with a touch of customization, their name. Consequently, you end up distancing yourself from your audience and fail to hold ground.

Rather you should learn to respond in that instant when a suggestion is made or when positive feedback is registered or some criticism is hurled at ya. Can’t get any more ‘engaging’ than this!

5. Ensure online and offline synchronization

The trickiest part in managing your social media presence is that your online presence should exude a similar aura of your brand that the visitors would feel in your physical establishme1nt.

If you’re a clothing brand, your funky appeal online should correspond with that of your store. You can’t have dull people managing your business there.

Seriously, would you leave your operations in the hands of the people who wouldn’t know how to keep the customer’s enticed? So you need to hire the kind of people who can carry similar energy online as your staff do in your brick-and-mortar store.

A good example of this is Nordstrom Department store. It uses Pinterest marketing which allows its 4.5 million users from its Pinterest community to pin their favorite items on their website and the items which are pinned the most go to display in their physical stores.



Image Source: Business2Community

6. Engage in conversations

You can sell your brand by posting ads; you’re allowed to do that. There is nothing wrong with it, but don’t do just that.

You should try to engage them in a conversation. How? By asking for their feedback, their preferences, or thanking them for reading your blog.

If your target audience tends to comment on an external thread, try stepping into the conversation. Let them know that they are important to you, that their every word is helping you shape your services en route for improvement and continued excellence (no, I’m not asking you to lie).



Image Source: Contently

As you can see in this example, McDonald’s is using its customer support on Twitter to inform, educate and take feedback from its clients.

7. Admit when you’re wrong

Everybody makes mistakes and that’s what makes us human. So if your company has made a mistake, be open about it and admit it! The more transparent your dealings are with your customers, the more loyal and cemented relations you will have with them.

When it comes to complaint handling, you need to stay vigilant on your social media platforms. Do not argue or try justifying to the customer how it is their fault and not yours. It will drive them away. Even if it is their fault, clarify them through their inbox/message and move it from the public eye.

It can be insulting and disrespectful to the customer. If it has been established that the mistake has been committed from your end then lay out a road map on how you plan to resolve it for them.
Wrap

This list is not exhaustive. There are always going to be a number of other ways to humanize social media. However, the future of customer retention will largely depend on how you connect with your customer; in a corporate fashion or at a human level.

Using Instagram to Sell Products Just Became Much Easier

Instagram has rolled out a game-changer for businesses: brands can now sell products directly from the app.

The photo-sharing app introduced a new ‘tap to view’ button on November 1, 2016. The button gives shoppers the opportunity to learn more about an item in an image, as well as the option to go directly to the retailer’s website to purchase the item.

Vishal Shah, head of product management for monetization at Instagram, explained the inspiration to Recode: “We’ve seen pretty good progress in mobile on making purchases easier. But these two things—discovery and the actual purchase—are just not well-connected like happens in physical stores.”Image via Instagram.

The network’s announcement post explained: “Most mobile shopping experiences today take people from the shop window right to check out—without giving consumers the opportunity to consider a product and get more information.”

Instagram chose to add a button that encourages users to learn more first, rather than simply ‘buy now’, because internal research found that only 21 percent of purchases are made within a day.

The new ‘tap to view’ option will appear on the bottom left of select Instagram images. The feature is being tested with 20 U.S.-based retail brands, including Kate Spade, JackThreads, and Warby Parker.

When users tap on the icon, tags will appear on up to five items within the post, highlighting products and their prices. A new, detailed view of the product will open if users select one of the tags. From there, users can select ‘Shop Now’ to go directly to the product on the business’ website.



Dave Gilboa, co-founder and co-CEO of Warby Parker, explained his company’s interest in the new feature: “Right now, there isn’t a simple, clean way for us to share details about products featured within our posts. Customers often have to ask us, which creates a bulky experience on both sides. We love how seamlessly integrated and consumer-centric this new experience is.”

Instagram’s retail partners expounded on the improved customer experience, which will allow consumers to shop where they are, instead of having their experience interrupted by switching apps.

The new ‘tap to view’ option follows on the heels of several other business-related updates. In June, Instagram launched an enhanced call-to-action button, which stretches the full width of the ad, with text appearing on the left-hand side.

Then, an October 2016 update added new features to the call to action button:
The button is highlighted if a user rests on the ad for four seconds or taps the profile name
Call to action buttons appear on the comments section
For video ads, users who unmute will be taken to a destination URL while the video continues to play at the top of the screen

And that’s not even counting Instagram’s new business profiles, which launched over the summer.

One thing is clear—Instagram is courting brands. And with so many business-focused updates, it’s likely to get them.